Disturbing Historical Facts That I Kind Of Wish I Hadn’t Heard

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In the 18th century, a woman actually convinced doctors that she was giving birth to rabbits:

Mary Toft reportedly ‘gave birth’ to up to nine of the fluffy creatures at a time! Doctors were convinced that she was telling the truth until they found pieces of corn inside the stomach of one of the rabbits, proving that it hadn’t developed inside Toft’s womb. It turned out that she had been manually inserting the rabbits to make the ‘delivery’ look as realistic as possible. Ew.

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A 7th-century woman gave birth after she had already died – and her case isn’t unique:

Archaeologists discovered the mother’s remains laying face-up (suggesting a deliberate burial) with the skeleton of a foetus in between her legs, and only the legs of the baby still inside her. There have been very few other instances of this happening throughout history. It’s called coffin birth, and can happen when the pregnant corpse releases gasses while decomposing that pushes the stillborn foetus out.