Caul

A caul is a piece of membrane that can cover a newborn's head and face.[1] Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births.[2] The caul is harmless and is immediately removed by the attending parent, physician, or midwife upon birth of the child.[3]

An en-caul birth is different from a caul birth in that the infant is born inside the entire amniotic sac (instead of just a portion of it). The sac balloons out at birth, with the amniotic fluid and child remaining inside the unbroken or partially broken membrane.[3]

## Contents

* 1 Types
* 1.1 En-caul birth
* 2 Removal
* 3 Epidemiology
* 4 Folk traditions
* 5 Notable people born "in the caul"
* 6 In popular culture
* 7 Notes
* 8 See also
* 9 References
* 10 Further reading
* 11 External links

## Types

See also: Medicine:Childbirth

The amniotic sac from an en caul birth.

A child 'born with the caul' has a portion of a birth membrane remaining on the head. There are two types of caul membranes,[4] the first type of membrane is the inner layer called the amnion which is the amniotic sac that contains the fetus and the amniotic fluid;[5] the second membrane is the chorion and is the outermost membrane around the fetus, it contains a complex series of blood vessels that are connected to the endometrium, which together with the chorion forms the placenta, the primary organ responsible for supplying the fetus with oxygen, nutrients and extracting waste.[6]

The most common caul type is a piece of the thin translucent inner lining of the amnion that breaks away and forms tightly against the head during birth.[7] Such a caul typically clings to the head and face but on rarer occasions drapes over the head and partly down the torso.[4]

### En-caul birth

A second type of (in) caul birth that is the amniotic sack covering the whole newborn, called an en caul (meaning "in caul" in latin) birth. Sometimes this called a mermaid birth. In this rare (fewer than 1 per 80,000 deliveries)[8] but harmless[9] type of en caul birth, the sack does not stop at the head, instead covering the whole newborn. This is more common (and sometimes even thought of as safer) in caesarean section births.[10] In a fully en caul birth, the umbilical cord provides oxygen to the neonate while it is still fully enveloped in the embryotic sack.

## Removal

The caul is harmless and is immediately removed by the attending parent, physician, or midwife upon birth of the child. If the membrane is of the amniotic tissue, it is removed by easily slipping it away from the child's skin. The removal of the thicker membrane is more complex. First, the attending practitioner will make a small incision in the membrane across the nostrils so that the child can breathe. The loops are then carefully removed from behind the ears. The remainder of the caul is then either peeled back very carefully from the skin or else gently rubbed with a sheet of paper, which is then peeled away. If removed too quickly, the caul can leave wounds on the infant's flesh at the attachment points, which might leave permanent scars.[7]

## Epidemiology

Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births. This statistic includes en-caul births, which occur more frequently than authentic caul births; therefore, authentic caul births are even more rare than indicated by the raw statistic. Most en-caul births are premature.[11] Research in the 2020s has shown that surgical techniques during cesarean deliveries of severely premature infants that focus on delivering the infant with the caul intact can potentially increase the baby's chances of survival, as it protects the underdeveloped fetus from being harmed by the muscle contractions of the uterus, and from the doctors and nurses accidentally harming the fetus while removing it from the uterus.[12][13]

## Folk traditions

According to the unreliable Historia Augusta, the boy-emperor Diadumenian (208–218) was so named because he was born with a diadem formed by a rolled caul.[14]

In medieval times, the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck.[15] It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Gathering the caul onto paper was considered an important tradition of childbirth: the midwife would rub a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the material of the caul onto the paper. The caul would then be presented to the mother, to be kept as an heirloom. Some Early Modern European traditions linked caul birth to the ability to defend fertility and the harvest against the forces of evil, particularly witches and sorcerers.[lower-alpha 1]

Folklore developed suggesting that possession of a baby's caul would bring its bearer good luck and protect that person from death by drowning. Cauls were therefore highly prized by sailors. Medieval women often sold them to sailors for large sums of money; a caul was regarded as a valuable talisman.[17]

In Polish the idiom w czepku urodzony/a lit. born in a bonnet, in Italian nato/a con la camicia lit. born with a shirt and in French né(e) coiffé(e) lit. born with a hat on all describe a person who is always very lucky.[4][18]

The Russian phrase родился в рубашке (rodilsya v rubashke lit. born in a shirt) refers to caul birth and means 'born lucky'. It is often applied to someone who is oblivious to an impending disaster that is avoided only through luck, as if the birth caul persists as supernatural armor, and in this sense commonly appears in titles or descriptions of Russian dashcam videos.[19]

Not all cultural beliefs about cauls are positive. In Romanian folklore babies born with a caul are said to become strigoi upon death.[20][21] It was also believed[clarification needed] that "he who is born to be hanged will never drown", i.e. that anyone born with a caul was destined to leave the world in a hangman's hood in place of the caul with which they were born. The belief in cauls as omens persisted well into the 20th century.[22]

The 16th-century Dutch physician Levinus Lemnius, author of The Secret Miracles of Nature, remained skeptical of superstitious claims about preserved cauls. 19th-century comic writer Thomas Hood even ended his poem "The Sea-Spell" with a lament about a drowning sailor's futile reliance on a protection charm:[22]

> Heaven never heard his cry,
>  Nor did the ocean heed his caul.

## Notable people born "in the caul"

* Barbara Barondess[23] (1907–2000), American actress
* Edwin Booth[24] (1833–1893), American actor
* Lord Byron[25]
* Charles XII of Sweden
* Gabriele d'Annunzio[26]
* Andrew Jackson Davis[27]
* J. G. Farrell, novelist[28][29]
* George Formby, English comedian
* Sigmund Freud[30]
* Johnny Giles[31]
* Lillian Gish[32]
* Charles Haughey, Taoiseach na hÉireann (Prime Minister of Ireland)
* James VI, King of Scotland and England
* Liberace
* Edna St. Vincent Millay[33]
* Abraham Ribicoff[34]
* Jonas Salk[35]
* Cora L. V. Scott (1840 – 1923), American medium
* Lee Shelton (disputed)
* Joseph Smith
* Nancy Wake[36][37]
* Kim Woodburn[38]

## In popular culture

In the classic 1850 novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, the title character and novel narrator describes his own birth: "I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas." Copperfield goes on to describe the fate of his caul, which was re-sold and raffled over the subsequent decade as a talisman believed to protect its owner from death by drowning.[39]

In the novel Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey, Theophilus Hopkins, father of the hero, Oscar, gives to his son a little box, inside which there is "a caul, the little membrane that had covered Oscar's head at birth and it had been kept, his mother had kept it, because it was said – superstitiously, of course – that such a thing would protect the child from drowning".[40]

An en caul birth is depicted in the episode "Heavy Hangs the Head" (S03E01) of the Apple TV+ science fiction series See.[41]

Other depictions include:

* In the 1980 horror film The Shining, Danny Torrance is born with a caul, possibly causing his clairvoyant abilities.
* In the 1987 novel Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, the protagonist Alvin Miller is born with a caul. Several times during the novel, a girl named Peggy Guester (a "torch") secretly uses the powers of Alvin's caul to protect him from harm.
* In Barbara Kingsolver's novel Demon Copperhead (2022), the protagonist is born with a caul, with the superstition that he could not die by drowning.
* In the FX series The Strain, Zach is born in a caul in S3 Episode 3 "First Born".
* In J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist is significantly named Holden Caulfield.[42]
* In the novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Francie Nolan is born with a caul.
* In 9-1-1: Nashville, Season 1 Episode 2 "Hell and High Water", the infant is depicted being born fully en caul, necessitating its rupture.

## Notes

1. ↑ The story of these so-called benandanti is recounted in Carlo Ginzburg's 1983 study.[16]

## See also

* Vernix caseosa
* Meconium

## References

1. ↑ "caul". Thefreedictionary.com. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/caul.
2. ↑ Malik, Rohail; Sarfraz, Adil; Faroqui, Raihan; Onyebeke, William; Wanerman, Jeffrey (2018-04-30). "Extremely Preterm (23 Weeks) Vaginal Cephalic Delivery En Caul and Subsequent Postpartum Intraventricular Hemorrhage and Respiratory Distress: A Teaching Case" (in en). Case Reports in Obstetrics and Gynecology 2018. doi:10.1155/2018/5690125. ISSN 2090-6684. PMID 29854514.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "En Caul Birth: What Is It?". WebMD LLC. 23 April 2025. https://www.webmd.com/baby/en-caul-birth-what-is-it.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Ray, Michael (10 October 2016). "Caul". Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/caul.
5. ↑ Aakanksha, Gaur; Rodriguez, Emily (16 November 2018). "Amnion". Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/amnion.
6. ↑ "Chorion". Encyclopedia Britannica. 20 July 1998. https://www.britannica.com/science/chorion.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Forbes, Thomas R. (June 1953). "The Social History of the Caul". The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 25 (6): 495–508. ISSN 0044-0086. PMID 13078640. Direct PDF link.
8. ↑ https://www.cloudninecare.com/blog/what-is-en-caul-birth
9. ↑ https://www.cloudninecare.com/blog/what-is-en-caul-birth
10. ↑ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11721903/
11. ↑ Malik, Rohail; Sarfraz, Adil; Faroqui, Raihan; Onyebeke, William; Wanerman, Jeffrey (2018). "Extremely Preterm (23 Weeks) Vaginal Cephalic Delivery En Caul and Subsequent Postpartum Intraventricular Hemorrhage and Respiratory Distress: A Teaching Case". Case Reports in Obstetrics and Gynecology 2018: 1–3. doi:10.1155/2018/5690125. PMID 29854514.
12. ↑ Pabin, Izabela; Stefańska, Katarzyna; Jassem-Bobowicz, Joanna Maria; Wydra, Dariusz (26 December 2024). "En Caul Cesarean Delivery—A Safer Way to Deliver a Premature Newborn? Narrative Review". Journal of Clinical Medicine 14 (1): 51. doi:10.3390/jcm14010051. PMID 39797134.
13. ↑ Girault, A.; Carteau, M; Kefelian, F.; Menard, S.; Goffinet, F.; Le Ray, C. (February 2022). "Benefits of the «en caul» technique for extremely preterm breech vaginal delivery". Journal of Gynecology Obstetrics and Human Reproduction 51 (2). doi:10.1016/j.jogoh.2021.102284. PMID 34906693.
14. ↑ Dawe, Ted (3 August 2021). "The strange case of the amniotic sac". Newsroom (Readingroom). https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/03/08/the-strange-case-of-the-amniotic-sac/.
15. ↑ Campion, Vikki (2008-12-31). "Dolores Pancaldi's birth in protective membrane". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24857363-5001021,00.html.
16. ↑ Ginzburg, Carlo (1983). The night battles: Witchcraft and agrarian cults in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1st ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. doi:10.4324/9780203819005. ISBN 0-7100-9507-4.
17. ↑ Oliver, Harry (2006). "12: Birth". Black Cats & Four-Leaf Clovers: The origins of old wives' tales and superstitions in our everyday lives. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 141–160. ISBN 978-0-399-53609-0.
18. ↑ Ronca, Debra (9 July 2015). "What's a Birth Caul, and Why Are People Superstitious About it?". HowStuffWorks. https://people.howstuffworks.com/birth-caul-superstition.
19. ↑ "Lucky Babies Are Born Caul!". 22 June 2018. https://www.smallacorn.co.uk/funfactfriday/lucky-babies-are-born-caul/.
20. ↑ Andreesco, Ioanna (2004) (in fr). Où sont passés les vampires ?. Payot. ISBN 978-2-228-89913-0. https://books.google.com/books?id=BhdwAAAACAAJ.
21. ↑ Barber, Paul (2010) (in en). Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-16481-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=MQBangEACAAJ.
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Read, Sara (October 2022). "How were the births of babies born with cauls viewed in the past?" (in en). BBC History Magazine (Immediate Media Company London Ltd.) 23 (10): 57. https://issuu.com/immediatemediaco/docs/bbchistorymagazine_20220901_october2022.
23. ↑ Barondess MacLean, Barbara (1986). One Life is Not Enough. Hippocrene Books: New York.
24. ↑ Giblin, James (2005). Good brother, bad brother: The story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth. New York: Clarion Books. p. 7. ISBN 0-618-09642-6. https://archive.org/details/goodbrotherbadbr00gibl/page/7.
25. ↑

* Trueblood, Paul Graham (1969). Lord Byron. Boston: Twayne Publishers. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8057-6694-3. https://archive.org/details/lordbyron00true/page/18/mode/2up.
* Ellingson, Katharine (1998). "Byron: His Life". http://teachers.edenpr.org/~rolson/ArcadiaWeb/Byron/Byron1.html. (Archived)

26. ↑ Hughes-Hallett, Lucy (2013). The Pike: Gabriele d'Annunzio – poet, seducer and preacher of war. Fourth Estate, p. 90. ISBN 978-0-00-721395-5.
27. ↑ Davis, Andrew Jackson (1867). The Magic Staff: An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis. Boston: Bella Marsh. p. 66. https://archive.org/details/cu31924028954852/page/66/mode/2up.
28. ↑ Greacen, Lavinia (1999). J.G. Farrell: The making of a writer. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-7475-4463-0. https://archive.org/details/jgfarrellmakingo0000grea/page/20/mode/2up.
29. ↑ "The Siege of Krishnapur – About the Authors". New York Review Books. 2010. http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/the-siege-of-krishnapur/.
30. ↑ Morgalis, D. P. (1989). "Freud and his Mother". Modern Psychoanalysis 14 (1): 37–56. https://pep-web.org/browse/document/MPSA.014.0037A?page=P0037. Retrieved 15 October 2011.
31. ↑ Giles, John (2010). A Football Man: The Autobiography. Hodder & Soughton. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-444-72096-9.
32. ↑ Affron, Charles (2002). Lillian Gish: Her legend, her life. Berkeley (US): University of California Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-520-23434-5. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9790520234344_n2r1/page/18/mode/2up.
33. ↑ Milford, Nancy (2002). Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Random House. p. 18. ISBN 0-375-76081-4.
34. ↑ Tolchin, Martin (July 30, 1974). "Ribicoff's Charmed Life: From Poverty to Power". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1974/07/30/archives/ribicoffs-charmed-life-from-poverty-to-powerr-ribicoffs-charmed.html.
35. ↑ Jacobs, Charlotte DeCroes. "Dr. Jonas Salk, the Knight in a White Lab Coat: An Interview". History News Network. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/159990.
36. ↑ "Nancy Wake dead, aged 98. Extract by Peter Fitzsimons". Mamamia. August 8, 2011. https://www.mamamia.com.au/nancy-wake-dead-aged-98-extract-by-peter-fitzsimons/.
37. ↑ Fitzsimons, Peter (2002). Nancy Wake: A Biography of Our Greatest War Heroine. HarperCollins Publishers Australia. ISBN 0-7322-7456-7.
38. ↑ Woodburn, Kim (7 September 2006). Unbeaten: The Story of My Brutal Childhood. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.. ISBN 0-340-92221-4.
39. ↑ Dickens, Charles (2008). David Copperfield. Oxford University Press. p. 1.
40. ↑ Carey, Peter (1988). Oscar and Lucinda. St. Lucia, Queensland (Australia): University of Queensland Press (UQP). p. 215. ISBN 0-7022-2116-3.
41. ↑ Lock, Adam (2022-08-26). "See season 3, episode 1 recap – the premiere explained". Ready Steady Cut. https://readysteadycut.com/2022/08/26/recap-see-season-3-episode-1-apple-tv-plus-series/.
42. ↑ Lohnes, Kate (15 April 2025). "The Catcher in the Rye". Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Catcher-in-the-Rye.

## Further reading

* Moore, Arthur William (1891). "8. Customs and Superstitions Connected with Birth, Marriage, and Death §Birth". Folklore of the Isle of Man: Being an account of its myths, legends, superstitions, customs, & proverbs. Douglas, Isle of Man; London: Brown & Son; D. Nutt. pp. 156–157. https://archive.org/details/folkloreofisleof00moor/page/156/mode/2up. (Digitised version)

## External links

* Caul Bearers United – Lifting the Veil website. (Self-published; includes references):
* "Authentic Caul History" (archived); and
* "Caul Bearers in Art" (archived). Collection of short biographies of artists, writers, poets, musicians, composers, etc., born with cauls.

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