Mothers remained unclean for forty days after giving birth. The rhetoric against women's presumed ritual impurity was continued by theologians in the Middle Ages. Women are not allowed to visit a church during menstruation or after the birth of a child. For a woman is an animal that menstruates. Through touching her blood fruits will fail to get ripe.
Mustard degenerates, grass dries up and trees lose their fruit before time.
Iron gets rusted and the air becomes dark. 1 v. Women may not take communion to the sick and have to stay out of church after childbirth. And intercourse at the time of the monthly period is very risky. Rufinus, Summa Decretorum , passim. Women may not touch any sacred vessel.