One little piece of nautical trivia for you here.
Women did serve on some ships of the sailing navies
regardless of what so called 'official' history says and it was not an unknown
occurrence that some pregnant women gave birth aboard ship,
some times in the heat of battle.
it appears the favoured place was usually between gun stations,
hence the term 'Son of a gun'.

That story may well be spurious but it's as good a reason for it as i've ever heard.