ABSTRACT
First published in 1992, this book explores the efforts to counteract the high maternal and infant death rates present between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second World War. It looks at the problem in five different continents and shows the varying approaches used by the governments, institutions and individuals in those countries. Contributors display how policy and practice have been shaped by the structure of maternity services, nationalism, the conflict of colonization and cultural factors. In doing so, they illustrate how welfare policy and funding were moulded throughout the world in the times considered.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 3|26 pages
Mothers, babies and hospitals
‘The London' and the provision of maternity care in East London, 1870–1939
chapter 4|23 pages
The medicalization of motherhood
doctors and infant welfare in the Netherlands, 1901–1930
chapter 6|12 pages
‘Why does Congress wish women and children to die?'
the rise and fall of public maternal and infant health care in the United States, 1921–1929
chapter 9|25 pages
‘Getting close to the hearts of mothers'
medical missionaries among African women and children in Johannesburg between the wars
chapter 10|27 pages
‘Dangerous motherhood'
maternity care and the gendered construction of Afrikaner identity, 1904–1939