According to the Levitical law, the mother was considered unclean during the first week following delivery. In that time, she basically stayed in seclusion with the child. That lasted a week if it were a boy and two weeks if a girl. For the next thirty-three days, she could mix with the family, but could not be in public. 

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On the fortieth day of life, Jesus would have been dedicated to Yahweh as a part of the purification sacrifice for her uncleanness. Uncleanness and its various purification processes is generally misunderstood by Christians. It has nothing to do with sin. Being a mother is not a sin, but for these forty days she is unclean. Uncleanness brought quarantine, generally so the infected person would not infect someone else. New mothers, however, were quarantined for their protection. 

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Even in today’s stress on sanitation, women risk infections with birth or even menstruation. The damage to vaginal tissue with either of these is an open invitation to pathogens. Vaginal infection can come from all sorts of bacteria, but the major source is Streptococcus. Women often died at childbirth until the 1930s and the advance of antibiotics. 

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