Dedicated sauna hut

In the olden days, saunas were always in separate buildings. They were used for a variety of purposes - from cleansing to giving birth. If a farm had helpers who worked for the farm, then sometimes the farm-hands would be allowed to move into the sauna.

The reason why saunas were the ideal places to give birth in, is that back in the day, saunas were smoke saunas . They did not have chimneys (nor did farm houses for a long time, for those to whom it seems odd). What happens in a smoke sauna is that you have a fire in the stove and heat the stones on top of it. There are many-many more stones in a smoke sauna, as they need to store more heat. Once the stones are heated, the fire is put out or dies naturally. The smoke is vented out of the room and the sauna is ready to be used. The heated stones have so much energy stored in them that you can throw leili in the morning of the next day and the sauna can stay warm for days from a single heating.

The smoke really is the key to why a smoke sauna was the cleanest place where you could go to give birth - smoke kills the bacteria and all sorts of diseases.

This also explains why peasants living in farm houses, which had smoke in it after cooking and heating, were less affected by virus outbursts than the wealthy foreign mansion keepers who lived in big moist stone houses that had sophisticated chimney systems. Although smoke burns your eyes and does not feel pleasant, it does have its uses at times.