waybread
Well-known member
Friesiangal, this isn't a thread about the history of fertility (global, continental, or national,) but it is very clear from European historical data that although women may have conceived fairly often, so many of their children died in infancy that the population remained basically stable (zero population growth) until the late 18th/early 19th centuries when it began to sky-rocket. Our grandparents' and great-grandparents generations were part of this upward trajectory, when most babies did mature and reproduce. Birth rates declined in our generation, with more economic prosperity, opportunities for women, and birth control pills.
This is consistent with what we read in some of the early astrologers. Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos (150 CE), for example, said that one of the first things an astrologer should do with an infant's chart is a length-of-life calculation, because there was no point in doing a chart reading for a child who "would not be reared."
In terms of actual fertility (# of babies born/woman) there were often dampening factors prior to ca. 1780 such as malnutrition, poor hygiene, incurable disease, childbirth death, warfare, and low life expectancy that began to be mitigated with improvements in food production, public hygiene, transportation to colonies as a "safety valve," higher incomes from industrial wages, and so on.
Lecture mode off.
I've tried to turn the standard fertility signatures on their heads, because if we could look at the charts of the hundreds of millions of actual mothers, their fertility signatures may look rotten yet they managed to bear and raise children, notwithstanding. Demographically the number of humans on the planet today cannot be explained by the successful childbearing of only those women with "green light" astrological traditional fertility signatures.
Plus today we have all kinds of fertility treatments that were unimaginable in the past.
I can't say what star2858's astrologer was analysing, but a couple of things pop out. One is that if she and her husband were trying to conceive for a mere 3 months (followed by a miscarriage?) this is entirely within the realm of medical normalcy.
I don't know what the medical advice is now, but when I was disappointed at not having a second child more quickly than I did in the early 1980s (they're 5 years apart,) the advice was, don't worry about it unless two years have elapsed without a successful conception. Much later in life, I learned that I have a "tipped uterus" so it was somewhat remarkable that I was able to conceive without intervention at all. Not to mention my moon and 5th house planets in barren signs, Saturn traditionally ruling my 5th house and opposed by Mars, Lilith in the 6th square Uranus (modern ruler of my 5th) and whatnot.
I can't say that astrology definitely does not show any fertility problems, but I just think that the amplitude of natal fertility indicators is probably a lot broader than astrologers traditionally allowed. Sometimes Uranus involved with the 5th for example, doesn't necessarily indicate miscarriage but an unexpected child; or that the woman might actually want more personal freedom and independence than children would allow.
I don't say the above to contradict what you posted, merely to present some lateral thinking about the fertility question in astrology. You're the medical astrology expert on this forum, not me, and I have a lot of respect for your expertise.
This is consistent with what we read in some of the early astrologers. Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos (150 CE), for example, said that one of the first things an astrologer should do with an infant's chart is a length-of-life calculation, because there was no point in doing a chart reading for a child who "would not be reared."
In terms of actual fertility (# of babies born/woman) there were often dampening factors prior to ca. 1780 such as malnutrition, poor hygiene, incurable disease, childbirth death, warfare, and low life expectancy that began to be mitigated with improvements in food production, public hygiene, transportation to colonies as a "safety valve," higher incomes from industrial wages, and so on.
Lecture mode off.
I've tried to turn the standard fertility signatures on their heads, because if we could look at the charts of the hundreds of millions of actual mothers, their fertility signatures may look rotten yet they managed to bear and raise children, notwithstanding. Demographically the number of humans on the planet today cannot be explained by the successful childbearing of only those women with "green light" astrological traditional fertility signatures.
Plus today we have all kinds of fertility treatments that were unimaginable in the past.
I can't say what star2858's astrologer was analysing, but a couple of things pop out. One is that if she and her husband were trying to conceive for a mere 3 months (followed by a miscarriage?) this is entirely within the realm of medical normalcy.
I don't know what the medical advice is now, but when I was disappointed at not having a second child more quickly than I did in the early 1980s (they're 5 years apart,) the advice was, don't worry about it unless two years have elapsed without a successful conception. Much later in life, I learned that I have a "tipped uterus" so it was somewhat remarkable that I was able to conceive without intervention at all. Not to mention my moon and 5th house planets in barren signs, Saturn traditionally ruling my 5th house and opposed by Mars, Lilith in the 6th square Uranus (modern ruler of my 5th) and whatnot.
I can't say that astrology definitely does not show any fertility problems, but I just think that the amplitude of natal fertility indicators is probably a lot broader than astrologers traditionally allowed. Sometimes Uranus involved with the 5th for example, doesn't necessarily indicate miscarriage but an unexpected child; or that the woman might actually want more personal freedom and independence than children would allow.
I don't say the above to contradict what you posted, merely to present some lateral thinking about the fertility question in astrology. You're the medical astrology expert on this forum, not me, and I have a lot of respect for your expertise.
Last edited:
