How did people prevent pregnancy in ancient times?

If you do not plan to have children during sexual intercourse, you naturally need to take contraceptive measures. Although there are many contraceptive measures available for people to choose from now, the contraceptive methods used in ancient times were not as advanced as they are today. However, some traditional contraceptive methods are also the prototypes of many contraceptive tools later, so it is still necessary to understand them. So how did people prevent pregnancy in ancient times?

Before the emergence of modern contraceptives, the contraceptive measures used by women in the past were rarely recorded in history books, were not common in unofficial history, and were also downplayed in film and television dramas. There is a plot in a movie starring Gong Li: a prostitute drinks a kind of medicine before receiving a customer, which is said to prevent her from getting pregnant. Of course, there is no way to verify what ingredients this medicine contains, and there are many different opinions about the contraceptive methods used by ancient prostitutes.

It is said that putting musk into a prostitute's navel can prevent pregnancy. For example, there are records of the two sisters Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede, who are considered the most "disaster-causing beauties" in China, taking such contraceptive measures. Of course, the sisters Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede cannot be called prostitutes, but they did end up in the same place. This kind of sticker for the navel is called "Laodu sticker". If you stick it on the belly button, it can end the conception function of a woman's belly and she will no longer be able to get pregnant. However, this "belly patch" has been lost.

More than 3,000 years ago in India and Egypt, the feces of animals such as crocodiles and elephants, which were believed to have mysterious powers, were also used in contraceptive prescriptions. In fact, because these animal feces are highly acidic, they do have a certain spermicidal effect.

There are also records that saffron is a secret contraceptive recipe passed down from the palace. It is said that if the emperor does not like a favored palace maid, he will let the eunuch hang the palace maid upside down and wash her lower body with saffron liquid. It is said that this can wash the semen in the palace maid's body. There are also some unofficial histories that say that in the past, after the emperor favored a concubine, if he did not want to keep the concubine, the eunuch would help the woman with massage to ensure that the emperor's semen would not remain in the woman's body, thus achieving the effect of contraception.

Through the above introduction, everyone has a clear understanding of how to prevent pregnancy in ancient times. In fact, some contraceptive measures in ancient times still had many flaws. Not only were they harmful to physical health, but contraceptive failure was also very common. Once pregnant, it will also bring great trouble and distress to female friends. After all, the thinking in ancient times was still very feudal.