Birth stool

BIRTHSTOOL (אָבְנָ֑יִם, bearing stool). The birthstool is referred to in Exodus 1:16 when Heb. women were having babies in Egypt and was a type of stool on which women sat while giving birth. The Heb. name for it, “double stones,” implies that it was a pair of stones one supporting each thigh with a gap between them to allow the midwife to effect the delivery. Giving birth in this position is really more logical than the modern positions of back or left-side as gravity will add to the natural powers effecting the birth. The same word is tr. “potter’s wheel” (Jer 18:3), since basically it means “disk.”