Ancient Greece and Rome Had High Infant Mortality

Why this is here: Pliny the Elder noted that humans are the only animals born completely helpless, “exposed from the first moment to cries and wails.”

In ancient Greece and Rome, societal attitudes and limited medical knowledge resulted in high infant mortality rates. For centuries, children lacked legal protections, and weak or deformed newborns were sometimes abandoned—exposed on Mount Taigetos or left by the Eurotas River in Sparta, or left in public in Athens. Homer’s Odyssey largely omits depictions of children, and the myth of Romulus and Remus, suckled by a wolf, reflects a harsh view of early life.

Physicians like Hippocrates began to separate medicine from mythology, recognizing disease as a biological process. However, fathers often decided a newborn’s fate, sometimes based on sex. Soranus of Ephesus, considered the first perinatologist, advocated for swaddling and established criteria for a baby’s viability.

The legal landscape shifted in the 4th century CE when Emperor Constantine I introduced measures to protect children, including financial aid and criminalizing infanticide, though high mortality due to nutrition and limited treatment options remained a persistent issue. The role of wet nurses was also critical to childrearing.