Tāichǎn Shū 胎產書
Book on Fetal Development and Childbirth
Anonymous (Mawangdui tomb 3 manuscript corpus, sealed 168 BCE)
About the work
The Tāichǎn Shū 胎產書 (“Book on Fetal Development and Childbirth”) is a gynecological and obstetric text from the Mawangdui 馬王堆 tomb 3 silk manuscript cache, sealed 168 BCE at Changsha, Hunan. It covers conception timing, month-by-month fetal development, dietary and behavioral prescriptions for the pregnant woman, techniques for selecting the sex of a child, postpartum care of mother and infant, and the ritual disposal of the placenta. It is the earliest extant Chinese text devoted specifically to obstetrics and prenatal care, and constitutes a primary source for the history of Chinese gynecology.
Abstract
The Tāichǎn Shū was excavated in 1973 from Mawangdui tomb 3 and published in 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組, 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》, vol. 4 (文物出版社, 1985); definitive edition in 裘錫圭 et al. (eds.), 《長沙馬王堆漢墓簡帛集成》 (中華書局, 2014). The title is a modern editorial designation.
The text opens with a dialogic frame: “●禹問幼頻曰：我欲埴人產子，何如而有？幼頻合曰：月朔已去汁□，三日中從之，有子” — “Yǔ asks Yòupín [幼頻]: ‘I wish to fill [the population with] people who have given birth to children — how does one have [a child]?’ Yòupín answers: ‘After the menstrual flow has ceased [at] the new moon, within three days follow [the husband] — there will be a child.‘” This mythological framing, with the sage-king Yǔ 禹 as questioner and a generative spirit (幼頻, perhaps “young fertility”) as instructor, is a common structural device in early Chinese technical literature (cf. the Huángdì-Sùnü 素女 dialogues in fángzhōng texts).
The month-by-month developmental sequence that follows assigns each lunar month a phase name, an elemental association, and specific dietary and behavioral prescriptions:
- Month 1: 留刑 (“Remaining form”) — diet must be fine; acid broths must be well-cooked; avoid pungent and raw foods.
- Month 2: 始膏 (“Beginning fat/essence”) — avoid pungent and rank food; keep living space quiet; do not exhaust the husband.
- Month 3: 始脂 (“Beginning fat/flesh”) — the fetus has not yet fixed its form and is shaped by what the mother sees; therefore noble persons should not allow dwarfs near, nor watch puppet performances, nor eat hare meat or raw ginger. To ensure a male child: keep bows and arrows, hold a male pheasant, ride a stallion, gaze at a male tiger. For a female child: wear silkworm-ear pendants and hold a red-jade pendant.
- Months 4–9: Each month is governed by one of the five phases (水, 火, 金, 木, 土, 石) receiving the developing fetus, with the corresponding body component (blood, qi, sinew, bone, skin/leather, body hair) being formed. Specific foods and activities are prescribed.
- Month 10: The fetal qi is complete and parturition imminent.
The text then shifts to postpartum instructions, including washing the placenta (bāo 包/胞), preserving it appropriately, and burying it in an auspicious location to ensure infant health, intelligence, and beauty. Techniques for sex-selection of the infant appear both prenatally (maternal diet, objects handled) and in a prenatal ritual using sparrow nest insects: “懷子未出三月者，呻爵罋二，其子男殹” (“For a pregnant woman who has not yet delivered in three months: whisper into two sparrow nests, and the child will be male”). Additional sex-selection rites use herbal preparations.
The final sections address infant care at birth — laying the newborn on fresh market earth to make it “vigorous and strong,” burning the birth-mat and immersing it in water to prevent skin disease — and a rite for women who bear only children of one sex and wish to change this (burying the placenta on the sunny or shady side of a wall).
The text is anonymous; no attributed author appears. The Yǔ/幼頻 dialogue frame is a literary device, not an attribution.
Translations and research
- Harper, Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. London: Kegan Paul International, 1998. — Translation and commentary; pp. 370–389.
- 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組 (ed.). 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》, vol. 4. 北京: 文物出版社, 1985.
- 裘錫圭 et al. (eds.). 《長沙馬王堆漢墓簡帛集成》, 7 vols. 北京: 中華書局, 2014.
- Wilms, Sabine. “Ten Times More Difficult to Treat: Female Bodies in Medical Texts from Early Imperial China.” Nan Nü 10.2 (2008): 242–286. — Contextualizes early Chinese gynecological texts.
- Hinrichs, T.J., and Linda L. Barnes (eds.). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Other points of interest
The Tāichǎn Shū’s month-by-month developmental scheme — with elemental associations governing fetal formation of specific body components — represents an early application of correlative cosmological thinking to embryology, anticipating the similar scheme in the received Chǎnjīng 產經 and later texts in the Zhūbìng yuánhòu lùn 諸病源候論 tradition. The assignment of Water (month 4), Fire (month 5), Metal (month 6), Wood (month 7), Earth (month 8), and Stone (month 9) as governing agents has no parallel in the canonical five-phase system and may reflect an independent archaic cosmological framework.