Spooky Birth Lore and a Terrible PMS Cure - Ep. 434

In this week’s “Today I Learned” segment, Laura explains what an en caul birth is and the centuries of strange folklore that grew around it, and Shanna digs up an 1890s doctor whose cure for period cramps involved an entirely unrelated body part. Also, Shanna attempts her first low-key Halloween in years, while Laura takes two kids who claim to love horror into two different Halloween stores. They also share this week’s BFPs and BFNs.

Kids' ages: Shanna's kids are 7.5 and 10.5 years old, and Laura's kids are 7.5 and 5.5 years old.

Topics discussed in this episode:
• What an en caul birth is, and how rare they are
• The difference between an en caul birth and a caul birth
• Caul folklore around the world
• How doctors treated menstrual symptoms in the 1800s
• Cocaine in 19th-century medicine
• Freud’s closest friend and his strangest theory
• Halloween burnout and scaling back the holiday
• Taking scared kids to a Halloween store
• Letting kids pick their own costumes
• Keeping a kid-free outing a secret

Products, links, resources mentioned in this episode:
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benandanti
• Ember days (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ember_days)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigoi
• Wilhelm Fliess (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Fliess)
• Spirit Halloween (spirithalloween.com)
• Bath & Body Works (bathandbodyworks.com)
• Halloween Horror Nights (universalstudioshollywood.com/hhn/en/us)
• Downtown Disney (disneyland.disney.go.com/destinations/downtown…)
• Forgotten Island movie (forgottenislandmovie.com)
• Jumanji: Open World (2026) (imdb.com/title/tt26735127)

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Big Fat Positive: A Pregnancy and Parenting Journey is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko and Steve Yager.
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