Wealhtheow’s Reviews > Midwives and Medical Men: A History of the Struggle for the Control of Childbirth > Status Update
Wealhtheow
is on page 63 of 259
Increasing industrialization and growing wealth of society worsens women's economic and social position relative to men. 'Industrialization had brought new independence to the women who worked in the factories, but had made it harder for mothers of young children to earn money. For middle-class women who had to support themselves the loss of opportunities for work was equally, if not more, serious.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:16PM
Like flag
Wealhtheow’s Previous Updates
Wealhtheow
is on page 197 of 259
dehumanizing, assembly line procedures of delivering a hospital, where, instead of being the central figure in a family drama, supported by husband and friends who can share in her great achievement, the woman is stripped of personal possessions and placed in stark, unfamiliar surroundings, to undergo among strangers what is usually a painful experience of at least several hours' duration...the rack-like delivery bed
— Jul 30, 2011 11:58AM
Wealhtheow
is on page 174 of 259
The Midwives Act of 1902 was considered a victory by most midwives and a loss by most physicians, but 'it put midwives in a uniquely disadvantaged position among the professions.' The Act subjected midwives to the same local supervision otherwise associated with tradesmen, not medicine. Midwives could be erased from the register for any misconduct (no other registration act dealt with private lives of practictioners)
— Jul 24, 2011 04:36PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 151 of 259
The Obstetrical Society's view had always been that the registered midwife should only attend the poor...[because poor women], being stronger, had less need of skilled assistance. Moreover, registration would have the merit of putting midwives in their proper place--doing the hard, tedious, ill-paid work appropriate for women....'women will have their fair and natural share of...midwifery work, whilst medical men
— Jul 24, 2011 04:30PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 89 of 259
Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, 1869: require prostitutes in garrison towns and seaports to undergo medical examinations (and if infected, detention in hospital) and had established a special corps of non-uniformed police to administer them.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:26PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 62 of 259
1850s England:"40 years before, in 1817, the family of an old Norwich midwife, Mrs. Phoebe Crewe, had proudly recorded on her gravestone her 40 years' work in this calling. Now the word 'midwife' itself was hardly respectable, and [Dickens's character] Sairey [Gamp]'s continued celebrity was to eclipse all.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:12PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 61 of 259
By 1850s, last midwifery work published by a midwife was Martha Mears's Pupil of Nature in 1797. Midwives rarely educated or respectable, women shouldn't seek self-advancement, the subject of midwifery could not be mentioned in polite female society.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:09PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 55 of 259
While France, Prussia, etc provide state schools for midwives, in 19th century England "midwife" has become unspeakable in polite society, indecent for husbands to be in lying-in room, women don't have the moral courage or skill with mechanical operations ("which midwifery is") to be midwifes. Genteel women, no matter how poor&in need of employment, would therefore not become or be employed as a midwife.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:07PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 25 of 259
Vast majority of lying-in hospitals in England only serve married women, although 2 serve single women pregnant with their 1st child. All women must be of "good character", "cleanly clad and free of vermin and contagious disease." Given the high mortality rate (not least from septic infections) in lying-in hospitals, this is ironic to me.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:03PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 22 of 259
In Britain, episcopal licensing of midwives starts dying out in 1700s, dead by end of 1800s. Scotland and Ireland pass laws on the regulation, examining&licensing of midwives, also start training them by 1726. No such measures in England mean midwives are of variable quality, have low status.
— Jul 24, 2011 04:00PM
Wealhtheow
is on page 16 of 259
When the man-midwife Jules Clement attended the Dauphine in 1682, he bled her at regular intervals during the 30 hours of the labor...[after, to promote recovery] the Dauphine was wrapped in a newly-flayed sheep-skin which had just been taken off the live animal in the lying-in chamber. Then, since to allow the mother to sleep immediately after a difficult birth was considered dangerous, she was forcibly kept awake
— Jul 24, 2011 03:54PM
Yet women's need for work was in fact much greater than when Elizabeth Nihell wrote [in 1760]. Ever since the first census in 1801 the returns had shown an excess of women over men which rose steadily each decade. By 1851 there were over a quarter of a million more women than men in the 20-40 age group; in consequence, a large number of women had to remain single all their lives. Despite the Victorian idealization of home-making as a woman's proper sphere, these 'redundant' or 'superfluous' women were forced, together with many widows and deserted wives, to earn their own living.
The actual proportion of women working at this period is difficult to discover. The 1851 Census Report itself gave a quarter of wives and 2/3rds of widows as gainfully employed. Others have put the proportion of all women working at this time at about a quarter, or at nearly a third(2). However, when account is taken of the general under-recording of women's part-time work, it seems more than likely that these are conservative estimates."
1)Pinchbeck, pp 314-16.
2)Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, XLIX, March 1886, p 321, Table II, and Economic Development in the United Kingdom, Labour Information, ECA Mission to the UK, 1952, p 218, quoted in the Report of the Committee on One-Parent Families, HMSO, 1974, p 35, Table 3.11.