ABSTRACT
Despite advancements in medical knowledge of foetal development and the decline in infant mortality, miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death remain all-too common events in many Australian women's lives. This chapter contains the oral history interviews of the socio-historical context of pregnancy loss in Australia. A lack of knowledge of infection during childbirth proved fatal for many Australian women and their babies, whilst poor living conditions in cities led to large outbreaks of infectious diseases such as gastro-enteritis, pneumonia, diphtheria and tuberculosis as well as a high incidence of weanling diarrhoea, making infancy a particularly dangerous period of life. The fledgling medical profession in Australia scarcely paid heed to infant mortality; pregnancy and childbirth, and its varying outcomes, were largely left to the ministrations of women. Medical discourse held women as fixed to nature and prone to emotional instability notions which were reinforced by and reproduced within the cultural shifts.
