Pregnancy, Delivery, Childbirth: A Gender and Cultural History from Antiquity to the Test Tube in Europe

by Nadia Filippini

Overview

This book reconstructs the history of conception, pregnancy and childbirth in Europe from antiquity to the 20th century, focusing on its most significant turning points: the emergence of a medical-scientific approach to delivery in Ancient Greece, the impact of Christianity, the establishment of the man-midwife in the 18th century, the medicalisation of childbirth, the emergence of a new representation of the foetus as "unborn citizen", and, finally, the revolution of reproductive technologies.

The book explores a history that, far from being linear, progressive or homogeneous, is characterised by significant continuities as well as transformations. The ways in which a woman gives birth and lives her pregnancy and the postpartum period are the result of a complex series of factors. The book therefore places these events in their wider cultural, social and religious contexts, which influenced the forms taken by rituals and therapeutic practices, religious and civil prescriptions and the regulation of the female body.

The investigation of this complex experience represents a crucial contribution to cultural, social and gender history, as well as an indispensable tool for understanding today’s reality. It will be of great use to undergraduates studying the history of childbirth, the history of medicine, the history of the body, as well as women's and gender history more broadly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780429560477
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/14/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	340
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Nadia Maria Filippini was Lecturer in Women’s History in the Department of Humanities at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. She obtained her PhD in history at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Her research concerns the history of women and the history of mentalities. She has published books, essays and articles, in Italian and other languages, on topics such as the history of Caesarean sections ("extraordinary birth"), childbirth and the body, as well as the history of medicine, and women’s social history. She is a founding member of the Società Italiana delle Storiche (Italian Society of Women Historians).

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I: Cultural representations; 1. Gender dichotomies; Part II: Giving birth and being born from antiquity to the 18th century; 2. Pregnancy; 3. Childbirth; 4. Birth and post-natal period; 5. Social birth; 6. The midwife; Part III: The 18th-century juncture; 7. The institutionalisation of midwives; 8. Man-midwives on the childbirth scene; 9. Lying-in hospitals; 10. The "foetus-as-citizen"; Part IV: The contemporary age; 11. The many revolutions of the 20th century; Bibliography; Index

Editorial Reviews

'Nadia Maria Filippini is a highly regarded social historian with a prolific scholarship centred on women’s reproductive history. With this volume, beautifully translated by Clelia Boscolo, English readers can access Filippini’s groundbreaking long durée approach to childbirth history, revealing patterns that evolved over 25 centuries.'

Costanza Gislon Dopfel, Social History of Medicine, UK

"This is a work of considerable scholarship. (...) Although I can hear the loud denials from here, I believe that in Britain we focus almost entirely on the practicalities of childbirth in the past, with limited interest in the contemporary thought and culture contributing to that care: this book takes a very different approach, and I thoroughly recommend it."

Alison Nuttall, De Partu: History of Midwifery and Childbirth Research Group

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Alain Touwaide, PhD (Ronin Institute)
Description: The title of this book perfectly expresses its content: the processes from pregnancy to childbirth analyzed from the double gender and culture viewpoint in Europe. If it were not enough, the illustration of the cover ("The Cholmondeley Ladies is an early-17th-century English oil painting depicting two women seated upright and side by side in bed, each holding a baby") is an explicit statement. The book is a translation of a work originally published in Italian in 2017.
Purpose: The purpose is implicitly stated in its very first lines: "We are all born from a woman's body ... In Western culture ... this fact has not been given a symbolic representation of adequate significance, at least not since Indo-European society imposed its own male gods, downgrading the mother goddesses of more ancient tradition ... On the contrary, a substantial cultural construct, rooted in Greek culture, has consistently played down its value ... by overstating men's contribution to generation ...". We have here a women's history of generation.
Audience: This book is for any readers interested in rethinking the basis of the "cultural contract" of present-day society. It is indeed a critical reading of the antecedents of the current construction about women's status in the process of generation, which results in reclaiming this history. Although this is a journey in historical erudition, it is extremely readable.
Features: After setting the stage through the analysis of relevant cultural representations, the book proceeds in three major phases: pre-18th century, the 18th century turning point, and the contemporary world. In each such phase, it presents a clear itinerary (in the pre-18th century, for example, pregnancy, childbirth, perinatal period) and, in each, examines a question that illustrates the construction of a model in a sequence that creates a gradual, cumulative itinerary.
Assessment: This is a subtle, refined, and erudite analysis, anthropological in nature, which results in a compelling case for a drastic revision of the many assumptions at the basis of the most fundamental fact of society: generation. It is a pleasure reading the narrative, extremely well built and enhanced by some explicit illustrations which are deciphered here with great sensitivity and astuteness.

Doody's Review Service