“The Health and Happiness of the Expectant Mother

Abstract

This dissertation explores the medical perceptions of pregnancy and childbirth in Victorian Britain, published both in popular health manuals intended for use by lay women and in the British Medical Journal (BMJ, publ. since 1840–). Using methods of close reading and contextual text analysis I have analysed doctors’ writings. The BMJ was an important arena of joint medical communication and discussion, and a source of information. Popular medical manuals were also educational; guidebooks were constructed on the idea of prevention, self-control, and the body–mind relationship. In this study, “health” is understood as a physical state of healthiness, and “happiness” as a steady state of mind. Emotions were widely discussed in obstetric medicine, foremost fear. Modern medicine was developed during the 19th century. However, as this study shows, doctors could use various innovations (stethoscope, antiseptic, anaesthesia) very differently and new ideas spread unevenly. For example, the advice given to pregnant women was based on the tradition of the six non-naturals (air, exercise, rest, diet, excreta, and emotions). In the 1880s, doctors could still explain some of the deformities and marks in newborn children by the controversial theory of maternal impressions. According to the theory, the pregnant woman’s emotions and experiences affected her unborn child, seen directly and visually in the baby after birth. The study also discusses the discourses of nature in 19th-century medicine. Natural labour was a technical term to explain the presentation of the foetus and the need of assistance in childbirth. However, in medical discourse, Nature was the very foundation of good health, a preserver of life, and a capricious destroyer. Male doctors constructed themselves as the protectors and allies of Nature, who stood in the middle of the triangle formed by Nature, pregnant women, and the art of midwifery, medicine, science, and progress; doctors could claim that they also possessed scientific and surgical methods if Nature failed. An ideal doctor was rationally compassionate, sensitive, and competent, being a respected member of the unified medical profession. In reality, medical work involving women’s reproductional health was not generally appreciated; it was considered difficult, badly paid, and the competition for patients and a livelihood was hard.