Childbirth, is not a new topic or a new process. It has been around since the dawn of time, what has caused changed, is the matter of where it happens and who is involved. Through history we have seen that childbirth started in homes, and women rarely went to hospitals until the late 1800s. Science was the reason behind this shift, as the experts in the field of medicine urged women to move from the home to the hospital when giving birth. Women during the time period of 1890s to the 1940s were told, it was better and safer to delivery at the hospital, with someone who was trained, opposed to a midwife who was not. Though research shows that the mortality rates of mothers and children rapidly increased when childbirth was hospitalized. When discussing the history of childbirth, the topic of gender is central, and it proves to play more of a role than one might realize. Yes, when childbirth is discussed, a female is the one delivering the child, but it is the people involved in the process that are being discussed throughout this paper. Midwives are a central theme, as they play a role that provides comfort and a less invasive approach to childbirth, and research shows that this was favored over the new techniques that doctors were using in terms of delivering babies. In society at this time it was discussed that it was a female’s job to reproduce, therefore, they should be the ones in charge of the process of delivery and labour. But as research suggests, since men had the ability and opportunity to go to post-secondary school and be trained in the newest science innovations, they should be the primary birth attendant. Which overturned the idea of women being the most qualified in this field, due to experience.
When exploring the medicalization of childbirth, the argument of medicalization itself proves to be crucial. It is argued and proven that women were not actually ill while in childbirth. Childbirth is a natural process and does not necessarily need any assistance. It was also discussed that due to the fact that women did not require any assistance, there was really no need for a doctor. This caused doctors to feel that this field of medicine was not significant enough to make a career out of, but also caused them to intervene more than necessary. These interventions significantly influenced the maternal and infant mortality rates, which will be discussed in depth later. The influence of gender and location play a role in the interventions used to aid in risk prevention, but it was seen and proven that these interventions were increasing the mortality rates of both mothers and infants.
When discussing childbirth and the medicalization of it, starting with First Nations is crucial to the understanding of the development of childbirth. In the early 1700s, as colonization was occurring, the European settlers were fascinated by the idea that the Aboriginal women seemed to have no issues or pain during childbirth. This was the start of “the myth of painless childbirth,” which continued to be seen and emphasized throughout the history of childbirth.[1] The idea that these women, seemed to experience little pain and still had the ability to maintain daily task while in labour, can be seen as the spark of interventions in labour, with the hope to create a painless experience. In the Aboriginal culture, there were methods and home remedies that were put in place to aid in pain alleviation. Patricia Jasen speaks to this by stating, “the reminiscences of elders recorded over the last century do suggest that aboriginal women in northern Canada traditionally sought to minimize the pain and peril of childbirth through attention to diet and ritual observances, and that they were often assisted during labour and delivery by female helpers, through solitary births were not uncommon.”[2] These attempts to assist in terms of pain, were nowhere near the extent or as invasive as what was seen in the hospitals in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Consequently, when you try to limit pain with interventions, you will inevitably deconstruct the notion that childbirth is a “natural” process.
What is also seen in the Aboriginal culture and traditions surrounding childbirth, was the presence of other women during the delivery. One of the main focuses of this paper will be discussing the transition from childbirth being a female dominated field, to a strictly male dominated field due to the advances in science and technology that were only made available for men through education. This transition was seen as invasive and a major shift and adjustment for women experiencing this “natural” process.
The Aboriginal culture and practices of childbirth were seen throughout Canadian and American practices as well. There was a certain position of labouring that proved effective amongst Aboriginal women, and that was the kneeling position. Canadian midwives took this into practice until medical advice had proven that delivering while lying in bed was more comfortable.[3] This is an example of how the Aboriginal cultures and practices were considered and used, until science deemed them less efficient or found something better. This trend is seen throughout the medicalization of childbirth, as science and doctors dominate an area of life and a natural process was taken over by a series of unnecessary steps.
Childbirth, as discussed above, has been influenced greatly by Aboriginal culture, from the desperation to find a way to prove “the myth of painless labour”, to the position that women chose to delivery their infants in. With all of this being said, the process of childbirth in that culture was one hundred percent natural, and there was little to no intervention whatsoever. These women proved that labour was definitely a natural process, and needing little assistance.
The “natural” process that has been continuously argued over time, and it is stated in an issue of the Canadian Nurse in the early 1900s, “Child birth is a natural process and with non-interference and cleanliness most mothers are safely delivered – after that, rest and lack of worry for the mother and simple care of the babe is all that is required.”[4] With the process advancing and completing on its own, there is little need for doctors, which proves to be the start of obstetrical intervention, just to make use of doctors. Margret Macdonald stated, “Birth is something that women do, rather than something that is done to them.”[5] Despite this article looking at midwifery in the late 1900s, it still does a pristine job of refuting the idea that birth needs to be an overcomplicated process. With it being a natural process and little intervention needed, “Normal labor was taken care of by mid-wives, physicians, only being called in abnormal cases”[6] As this Canadian Nurse article suggests, midwives were more than capable of delivering infants, but they did know their limits and knew when they were being exceeded. With handing labouring mother, over to doctors they were putting the interests of the mother ahead of their abilities. This can be connected to the overarching idea that midwives and labour was a community event of females in the area, who cared about the new life being brought into the world. Having mothers in the care of doctors brought the shift to the hospital and being at the hospital brought the debate as to why these women were even there, because they were not ill. Birth was a natural process and despite it being referred to as an illness, it was not an illness and there really was no need to a woman to go to the hospital if she was having a normal delivery. The idea of it being considered an illness is in connection to the transition to the hospital and will be discussed more in depth later.
When discussing pregnancy and childbirth, the idea of embodying citizenship comes out through the research, as it is continuously suggested that, “In pregnancy, suit was claimed, lay womanly fulfilment.”[7] It is stated in a large quantity, through the research, that women are designed to have children and reproducing is the main priority as a female. With that being their notable ability in life, the discussion of “helping women in labor was part of what they knew as women,”[8] was important to their citizenship. This furthers the argument of the citizenship of women being solely wrapped up in the idea of reproducing. Although this was the overarching idea through the late 1800s, the contradictory, rather sudden switch, of women no longer being qualified to assist a woman in labour quickly overpowers the innate citizenship of women. This idea of women no longer being “qualified” to help deliver a child, despite, most likely, doing it herself before, and it was deemed a woman’s duty. Sally Mennill states, “women’s very citizenship became tied to maternal responsibility while many activists embraced public parenting or mothering.”[9] Even though her article focuses primarily on the 1950s-60s, this quote is an accurate description of what the role of women was, and how caring for children and mothering were their main concerns. The shift from home to hospital, and from midwives to doctors, was more than just a shift in childbirth, it was a shift in gender roles, which only hindered women’s ability to reach equality with men in their daily lives. Before the complete shift to the hospital and the male dominated field of medicine, childbirth, “was a time for female friends and relatives to care for the parturient mother and her household, provide reassurance, and offer expertise and advice.”[10] Childbirth was seen this way, and most importantly as a source of “female bonding”[11] everywhere in the world. This was a common trend everywhere, and so was the medicalization as it came into play, it just took longer to take over in certain places. The disruption of the female dominated support system during childbirth, had for the most part vanished, along with part of female citizenship by the early to mid 1900s, along with midwives as a popular choice during childbirth.
As the citizenship of women, was suggested to include reproducing and aiding in the process of childbirth, the number of midwives was high before the early 1920s. Midwives would come to houses of women, as they went into labour, and would assist them with home remedies for reducing pain and helping labour progress. These women would be trained by other midwives, so they were lacking professional training, but since it was seen to be a role of women, their gender and experiences seemed to be enough before the 1900s, and few people showed concern over their training. Midwives focused on the women in labour, and not comparing and providing every intervention known to doctors. It was suggested that many women “preferred midwives because they found their care less invasive than a doctor’s.”[12] The shift of childbirth occurring in the home with midwives to the hospital with a doctor, changed the citizenship of women. It was a part of who they were as women, and when society decided they were no long educated or capable of performing a task they had been performing for a large part of their existence, it fell into the hands of men. As this shift took place, there was the idea or suggestion that midwives were to be “birth assistants” but Janet McNaughton suggested that “St. John’s midwives were not simply doctor’s assistants; they were birth attendants in their own right.”[13] As these women are being phased out of a realm that they have been placed in due to their gender, this shift, made a substantial impact on gender roles.
Caring for women in labor was originally a female job, as they were expected to know what to do, which is puzzling as to why some women pushed for men to dominate this field, due to the interest in science. With the introduction of science, society granted men the privilege to access the education that allowed them to be doctors, pushing women out of their preexisting roles as midwives. Lacking education as midwives, opened the door for educated men to be deemed best suited. Shifting obstetrics to a male dominated field, brought the home to hospital movement in full force, as science and experts deemed it most appropriate. Nancy Dye suggests that “because medicine was an exclusively male occupation, this change marked not only a shift from a nonprofessional attendant to a professional one, but also a transition from a female-controlled experience to a male-controlled one.”[14] This transition of location and birth attendant changed the dynamic of gender roles, and was the start of inequality for women due to the inability to access education, simply because of their gender. In Manitoba, among the Mennonites, gender played a significant role in the limitations women encountered as midwives. Werner stated that, “most midwives were female and most doctors were male…an element of gender-based status differences existed that put men at an advantage over women regardless of skill or education.”[15] This goes to show that even in smaller communities, who may have different values and beliefs, the overwhelming gender issue was still prominent. Wendy Mitchinson discusses this issue as well in her book, Giving Birth in Canada 1900-1950, she suggests that there was a major impact by stating, “in much of this literature, there is a sense of something lost with the decline of midwifery – the loss of a caring concern for women in birth, and a loss of women in general, as physicians (most of whom were men) took over what was traditionally been a female dominated sphere.”[16] This is the overarching theme of much of the research on childbirth, and with the increase of male physicians there was no room for untrained or uneducated women.
Changing the environment in which childbirth primarily occurred, not only changed the experience but it changed how society viewed it as well. As childbirth was taken into hospitals, there was a considerable amount of questioning as to why women in labour were brought to the hospital if they were not sick. This argument brought on the possibility that pregnancy and childbirth were an illness.[17] The debate continued and was in favour of the midwives, using the idea that women were not sick, meaning they did not need to go to the hospital. The major influence in the shift was gender dominance, men wanted to have access over this medical field like they had over all the other areas, and society backed this up. Having the shift of gender dominance and the location of childbirth, there were major changes that may not have benefitted women in labor. It was discovered through research, that women favored midwives over doctors, due to the personal experience and that midwives were less invasive, offering lots of choice and control for women during childbirth. With the transition to the hospital, women lost control and choice as the doctors had procedures in place that they performed on every woman in labor. The steps were put into place, mainly to have doctors feel useful, due to science suggesting a shift that was not fully necessary. It has been suggested that women were told it was the best and safest option for them, and without being aware, they were supporting the medicalization of childbirth.
Childbirth being taken out of the home, created many questions, most prominent was to do with illness. With childbirth being a natural process, there was no reason for forced assistance from doctors. Wendy Mitchinson suggests, “The traditional image of a physician was of someone who cured, but in childbirth women were not ill and the physician’s responsibility was to wait and intervene only when something went wrong.”[18] Interventions by doctors will be discussed at greater length later in the paper, but it is crucial to discuss the fact that most of what the doctors were trained to do was unnecessary. “In 1917 S.P. Ford referred to a physician who had claimed ‘that he would rather clean out a garbage can than attend a confinement.”[19] The impact it had on doctors, when it was realized by both society and the medical field, that there was no need for doctors in the natural process of childbirth. At the start of medicalization of childbirth, there was a misconception of the role of a doctor in delivering a baby. It made an impact on the doctors as they were unsure of how to make themselves useful. Mitchinson suggest that “within their professional world, physicians who delivered babies often did not believe that they had the respect of their peers.”[20] This unfamiliar territory for both the doctors and the women giving birth, sparked the medicalization of childbirth, to make the doctors feel useful, and they wanting to reduce the mortality rates, but what will be seen later, is that there was actually an increase in mortality rates with the overwhelming amount of doctor and hospital deliveries.
Through the research done, it has been acknowledged that women preferred midwives over doctors, and that they regretted supporting the shift of moving childbirth to the hospital. Hans Werner suggests that in Manitoba in this time period that “women felt that they were more likely to survive the birthing process if they had a doctor overseeing their labour. By putting their trust in science and technology, women contributed to, or possibly dictated, the medicalization of childbirth.”[21] Women were trying to make the best decision for themselves and their unborn infant, and the way that medicalized childbirth was suggested, it seemed to be what was desirable, from the outside. It was discussed above that women felt more comfortable with other women around and as doctors become the primary birth attendant they were far more invasive. In New York it was suggested that “Many women, then welcomed medical attendance, believing that doctors offered safer, better care than traditional birth attendants,”[22] and contrastingly “others may have preferred midwives because they found their care less invasive than a doctor’s.”[23] This can be discussed in the Canadian context as well, as the invasive transition would have been seen by women in Canada as well. The shift was more than just a shift of location it was “a passage from what historians have termed “social” childbirth, managed by women, to medical birth, managed by physicians.”[24] The idea of “social” childbirth, is referring to what was discussed above about midwives and other women being present during childbirth, as a support system and for “female bonding.”[25]Helene Lafarce suggested that “rigorous studies have shown that the massive intrusion of doctors in the Obstetrics between 1900 and 1930, the period of the elimination of midwives, did not decrease the peri-natal mortality rate.”[26] With this, midwives argued that “Obstetrics is still in the large majority of cases a matter for the home.”[27]
The transition from home to hospital had many detrimental impacts of women, most prominently, the loss of choice and control. As suggested above, “This transformation involved a shift from midwife to doctors as the only legitimate birth attendant and the move from home to hospital as the only acceptable birth place.”[28] The word acceptable is what stands out most in this sentence, because with the argument that childbirth is a natural process, there is little need for any assistance. Taking childbirth out of the home and away from the supervision of midwives, placed the care of these women in the hands of educated, but unexperienced males. The home was seen as an unacceptable place to give birth, and when training new students, it was made clear that there were biases from doctors. It is interesting though that doctors in this time period still took house calls and trained new doctors, “students needed to become accustomed to the inconveniences of delivering babies at home,” but it also goes to show that the shift to the hospital did not happen overnight.[29] It was a process and there were reasons, and opinions as to what was the best course of action, but in the end, science wins. It was stated by Jo Oppenheimer, “For society in Ontario, and for most of North America, the most noticeable change in birthing custom from mid-nineteenth century to mid-twentieth was the location of parturition; until 1938 most births in Ontario took place at home and after that date most births took place in hospitals.”[30] The move from home to hospital removed women’s ability to make choices on how she wanted to experience childbirth. The personal experience of labour was where “social childbirth” began, the presence of midwives and friends to provide support and comfort. The hospitalization of childbirth made changes to the pre-existing model of childbirth, and made it more medicalized, leaving little room for choice, control, or a personal experience. Strong-Boag and McPherson stated, “the barring of family members from delivery rooms, in contrast to the likelihood of their presence at home births, still further depersonalized an institutional environment which might promise safety but also readily imposed alienation.”[31] By removing the people closest to the woman in the delivery room, shows a major shift from being at home, and it could be assumed to there was a drop in the women’s comfort level and sense of choice and control.
When the control of a woman giving birth is lost, the natural experience is lost as well. The sense of control is what gives women the sense of comfort and that they are fulfilling their womanly duties. Macdonald work suggests “natural birth is said to be empowering to women, for through it they experience a sense of control and accomplishment that positively informs their sense of self not only as women and mothers, but also as persons” doctors eliminated the experience of labour for women.[32] Research has been done to suggest that the female body is capable and in control of the labour and delivery process, women in childbirth have the ability to feel what is happening and know how they are progressing. Through history, it has been shown that women deliver babies on their own or with female friends. With the introduction to science, this whole phenomenon was disregarded and male physicians told women how they were feeling. It was suggested in Nancy Dye’s work that before medicalization, “women defined labour by their own perceptions of uterine contractions and pain.”[33] As medicalization became the prominent form of childbirth it was suggested that the “changing definition of labour from female centered perception to objective, external clinical judgement served to enhance physician control of parturition, for it required a woman to rely upon her doctor to interpret and verify her experience.”[34] This shift seems overpowering and completely removes the woman from this process, by having doctors tell them how they are feeling. Pain management was the starting point for interventions in childbirth, as suggested at the beginning of the paper, as the goal was to discover how the Aboriginal women were experiencing a “painless childbirth.”[35] In the early 1900s there was the introduction of the “twilight sleep,” which put women to sleep during labour and delivery, so they felt no pain.[36] What was not always considered, was the fact that this method of delivery required the largest amount of physician intervention as the women’s body was not providing any assistance. It was suggested by Nancy Dye that “at the height of the twilight sleep movement, many women viewed the right to painless childbirth as a feminist issue and demanded that physicians do all in their power to obliterate birth pain. Leavitt concludes that women who participated in the movement were trying, above all, to assert control over the birth process. She argues that for twilight sleep advocated, “loss of control during the process was less important…than their determination to control the decision about what kind of labor they would have.”[37] These women were desperate for control, even if the outcome was not what they had desired. Despite the fact that this is an American source, the loss of control was prevalent among all women experiencing childbirth in a hospital opposed to the comfort of their own home. Strong-Boag and McPherson suggested, “The procedures recommended upon the onset of labour continued the objectification of the patient.”[38] Again and again through research it has been seen and suggested that women were practically removed from the experience of childbirth, when at the hospital and in the care of doctors, and left with little choice.
Moving from the home to the hospital had an impact on more than one aspect of childbirth, and many of them have been touched on above, but most importantly, medicalization and hospitalization took away the choice of women going through this “natural” process. As discussed earlier, the process of childbirth requires very little assistance, and giving birth at home with women they know and trusted, gave women in labor, a real sense of individualism and a sense of control. Doctors followed a step by step set of interventions to ensure safety, but what is shown in the mortality rates, is that there was actually an increase. Even though women thought they were choosing the safest option is was stated “Medicalization of childbirth occurred in Newfoundland because midwives and their clients wished this change, though many women regretted the loss of the personal care they received from friends and midwives in their own homes.”[39] It was also suggested by Gwenith Cross that “the exclusion of midwifery and the shift to hospital-based births in Ontario was done in the name of maternal and infant safety, but physician-attended hospital-based births were not safer than births attended by trained midwives.”[40] This quote shows that there was opposition for this shift and transition called medicalization, it was noy accepted easily, as so much choice was stripped away. Even in the 1950s and 1960s the topic of choice was prevalent and it was stated “The choice of where to give birth is clearly the doctor’s, not the patient’s.”[41] This idea follows the topic of gender, as men were superior over women in this time period. As doctors took over the process of childbirth, women had less of a voice, in a task that only women can do. Strong-Boag’s work contained a quote from a physician and it expressed how little he considered the pregnant women. It stated “I do not make a practice of explaining things to the patient herself, but instead give my orders to the nurse in the patient’s hearing, and I find that a curtness of manner works to advantage. This type of contact was to replace the more informal links between women that previously had helped them negotiate the shoals of childbirth.”[42] The disregard shown in this quote was key to the opposition, as one of the goal of medicalization was the help women achieve a painless and safe labour, the dominance of male physicians had taken priority.
Above it was discussed that childbirth had been acknowledged as a natural process, and through the medicalization of it, there was several interventions that overwhelmed the natural aspect. The introduction of interventions goes back to the “myth of painless childbirth,” and how the women in society tried to find a way to alleviate some of the pain that comes with labor and delivery.[43] But, it is not until the idea of childbirth as an illness, where the increasing amount of interventions comes to light. When childbirth was brought into the hospitals and it was determined that it was not an illness, doctors needed to find a way to keep busy and to make it necessary for these women to be in the hospital when they deliver their babies. The interventions and the step by step process to prevent risks that the doctors put in place was based off of all the dangers found in other cases, but was found to be unnecessary in most cases.[44] It is seen through research that this increase in intervention significantly increased the maternal and infant mortality rates. It has been discussed already that physicians that took on this field of medicine felt as if they had little respect from their fellow physicians as “the traditional image of a physician was of someone who cured, but in childbirth women were not ill and the physician’s responsibility was to wait and intervene only when something went wrong.”[45] This is what enforced the interventions and what dramatically influenced the mortality rates. It was also suggested that women often preferred midwives because they followed more of an individual set of preventative measures and were only focused on the mother in labor that she was with, instead of trying to prevent every risk that has ever been seen in laboring mothers.
As suggested above, one of the main goals of interventions was to limit the pain of childbirth.[46] The other concern was that, having childbirth take place at home, there was no time limits or resources needed at home and no one’s time needed, whereas at the hospital there was more factors in the process. It was stated by Dye, “because physicians regarded childbirth as a pathological process, they were rarely content to let nature take its course. They intervened with needless and often harmful practices, such as bleeding, purging, large quantities of ergot to speed labor, and indiscriminate use of forceps.”[47] Although this is an American source, it can still be applied to the Canadian context, as these forms of intervention were used as well, and for the same reasons. The medicalization of childbirth was the step by step procedure that was put in place for every woman who delivered a child at the hospital. The determination by science and educated men, of making these steps necessary protocol for childbirth, changed the process.
The thoughts towards interventions during childbirth were mixed, between patients as well as the rare case of doctors. Wendy Mitchinson suggested that “the physicians’ fears about the possible complications attending birth affected their view of childbirth and in turn influenced their opinions on where a woman should give birth, who should be with her during birth, and what their actions should be during birth.”[48] Interventions was seen either from the perspective of someone, such as a physician, who is in that field of medicine, and trying to perform the best and most preventative care for these women. It can also be seen from the perspective of someone who supports the idea of home birth and midwifery, supports care that allows the patient to be involved. It was stated in this time period that “this fearful wastage of human life could be enormously reduced by better prenatal care and the more skillful and painstaking management of labour.”[49] This perspective could come from midwives, or an individual who compares the statistics from when majority of births took place at home opposed to in the hospitals.
There was a source that was a part of physician’s records and it is called Hospital Organization and Management, it goes over all the procedures of the hospital and it had a section on obstetrics. Although this source is an America source, it could be assumed that the procedures would be at least similar to those of Canada. It was stated that “before going to the delivery room, the hair is combed and arranged in two tight braids,”[50] and that “patient should be given a liquid or soft diet regularly, even though she does not ask for it.”[51] These two interventions might not have been physical interventions to help with the delivery of the child, but they are in fact interventions that increased the invasiveness of being at the hospital during childbirth. This also is connected to the ideas discussed above, as to how women at the hospitals lost a significant amount of control and choice over what occurred while they were in labour. This is the opposite as to the control and freedom these women would have had at home with midwives, and their female friends.
Interventions during childbirth were key for medicalizing childbirth, this being due to the idea of it being a “natural process” as argued above. Although interventions were seen to be helpful and prevent risk and support the safety of mother and child, it was stated in Canadian Medical Association Journal article in 1929, “it will come as a shock to many that institutional maternal mortality is five times higher than midwifes’ maternal mortality, and that doctors’ maternal mortality is, roughly twice that of the midwives.”[52] This statistic is shocking but it is not the only statistic that shows the increased mortality rates. In M.E. Boyd’s work, it was stated “Sadly, but not surprisingly, the increase in surgical intervention in labour had an appalling effect on Maternal mortality,”[53] and “the single greatest contributor to this increase in maternal death was unnecessary interference in labour.”[54] Physicians were confident that they were providing services that would decrease the mortality rate, but by increasing the interventions, they were also increasing the risk for infection, and loss of blood, and unnecessary surgeries such as C-sections. These interventions were doing more harm than first considered, but by medicalizing childbirth, the control was in the hands of physicians, and that was part of the intended goal, but “the fact still remains that too many young mothers are dying as a result of pregnancy and child-birth.”[55] These interventions were having detrimental effects on women experiencing childbirth and several of them regretting supporting and getting on board with moving from the home to the hospital. Bow suggests, “In the nine provinces of Canada during the year 1926, 1,314 women died from causes directly connected with childbirth.”[56] Substantial numbers such as these, are not seen in today’s statistics or even talked about, this may have to do with the culture we live in and how the medical field has expanded their knowledge on this process of childbirth. The re-emergence of midwives could also play a role in the decreases. Helene Lafarce, suggested that “It seems, in fact, as though the mortality rate increased because of the type of intervention often practised by doctors.”[57] As these statistics show clearly that interventions during childbirth, were not what they were made out to be, as the midwives fought against the shift, and women lost the sense of control and personal relationship with their birth attendant, they also gained an significant increase in invasiveness with doctors. There was the loss of “natural” and independent experience that they were created for, and it was taken over by an invasive, dangerous, and male dominated ordeal.
To conclude, many of the points discussed follow the transition from home to hospital, and the importance this shift played not only in the lives of women experiencing childbirth, but women in general as parts of what made them women, and their womanly duties were stripped away from them. It is seen that gender influenced the changes that occurred, and because of gender the hospital became the primary, most acceptable place to give birth. But in doing so, it has increased the mortality rates in mothers and infants. The main themes of the paper work together to show the medicalization of childbirth and cannot be discusses alone. It was seen and discussed that the mortality rates increased after hospitalization and that the natural process was unnecessarily disrupted, but without this shift, the history of childbirth would not be available to learn about. Without the history, it is hard to learn from mistakes, and to learn new ways of treating or assisting women in labour. The process of childbirth is nothing unique, but it still should remain in the hands of women who are experiencing it, and be left as much of a natural process as possible.
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Werner, Hans, and Jenifer Waito, “One of Our Own”: Ethnicity Politics and the Medicalization of Childbirth in Manitoba.” Manitoba History. No. 58, June 2008: 2-10.
[1] Patricia Jasen. “Race, Culture, and the Colonization of Childbirth in Northern Canada.” The Society for the Social History of Medicine.10, 3 (Dec 1997): 384.
[2] Jasen. “Race, culture, colonization”, 384.
[3] Wendy Mitchinson. Giving Birth in Canada 1900-1950. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, 80
[4] E. Johns, “The Practice of Midwifery,” Canadian Nurse (January 1925): 11.
[5] Margaret MacDonald. “Gender Expectation: Natural Bodies and Births in the New Midwifery in Canada”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 20, 2 (2006): 247.
[6] Dr. G. M. Feldert. “Alleviating the Pains of Childbirth,” Canadian Nurse (August 1920): 469.
[7] Veronica Strong-Boag. “Intruders in the Nursery: Childcare Professionals Reshape the Years One to Five, 1920-1940,” in J. Parr, éd., Childhood and Family in Canadian History. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982, 162.
[8] Mitchinson. Giving Birth in Canada, 71.
[9] Sally Mennill. “Ideal Births and Ideal Babies: English-Canadian Advice Literature in the 1950s and 1960s”, 34.
[10] Nancy S. Dye. “History of Childbirth in America,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6, 11 (1980): 99.
[11] Dye. “History of Childbirth in America”, 99.
[12] Nancy, S., Dye. “Modern Obstetrics and working-class women: The New York Midwifery Dispensary, 1890-1920” Journal of Social History. 20(3): 555.
[13] Janet Elizabeth McNaughton. “The Role of the Newfoundland Midwife in Traditional Health Care 1900-1970” (PhD thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1989), 53.
[14] Dye. “History of Childbirth in America”, 100.
[15] Hans Werner, and Jenifer Waito. “One of Our Own”: Ethnicity Politics and the Medicalization of Childbirth in Manitoba.” Manitoba History. No. 58, June 2008: 3.
[16] Mitchinson. Giving Birth in Canada, 69.
[17] Barbara Clow. “An Illness of Nine Months’ Duration’: Pregnancy and Thalidomide Use in Canada and the United States,” in Feldberg, Ladd-Taylor, Li and McPherson, Women Health, and Nation, Montreal” McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003: 45-66.
[18] Mitchinson. Giving Birth in Canada, 51.
[19] Ibid, 51
[20] Ibid, 51
[21] Werner and Waito. “One of Our Own”: Ethnicity Politics and the Medicalization of Childbirth in Manitoba.” One of Our Own”, 4.
[22] Dye. “Modern Obstetrics and working-class women: The New York Midwifery Dispensary, 1890-1920” 553.
[23] Ibid, 555.
[24] Ibid, 549.
[25] Dye. “History of Childbirth in America”, 99.
[26] Katherine Arnup, Andree Levesque, and Ruth Roach. Delivering Motherhood: Maternal Ideologies and Practices in the 19th and 20th Centuries. New York: Routledge, 1990, 47.
[27] H. M. Little. “What’s the Matter With Obstetrics,” CMAJ (May 1929):646.
[28] Dye. “Modern Obstetrics and working-class women: The New York Midwifery Dispensary, 1890-1920”, 549.
[29] Dye. “Modern Obstetrics and working-class women: The New York Midwifery Dispensary, 1890-1920”, 551.
[30] Jo Oppenheimer. “Childbirth in Ontario: The Transition from Home to Hospital in the Early Twentieth Century.” Ontario History 75, 1 (March 1983): 36.
[31] Kathryn McPherson, and Veronica Strong-Boag. “The Confinement of Women: Childbirth and Hospitalization in Vancouver 1919-1939” BC Studies. 69-70, (Spring-Summer 1986): 163.
[32] MacDonald. “Gender Expectation: Natural Bodies and Births in the New Midwifery in Canada”, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 20, 2 (2006): 236.
[33] Dye. “Modern Obstetrics and working-class women: The New York Midwifery Dispensary, 1890-1920”, 555.
[34] Ibid, 555.
[35] Jasen. “Race, culture, colonization”, 383-400.
[36] Dye. “History of Childbirth in America”, 108
[37] Dye. “History of Childbirth in America”, 108.
[38] McPherson and Strong-Boag. “The Confinement of Women: Childbirth and Hospitalization in Vancouver 1919-1939”, 164.
[39] McNaughton. “The Role of the Newfoundland Midwife in Traditional Health Care 1900-1970”, ii.
[40] Gwenith S. Cross. “A Midwife at every confinement”: Midwifery and Medicalized Childbirth in Ontario and Britain, 1920-1950” CBMH/BCHM. 31:1 (2014): 140-141.
[41] Mennill. “Ideal Births and Ideal Babies: English-Canadian Advice Literature in the 1950s and 1960s” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. 31, 3 (2014): 38.
[42] Strong-Boag. “Intruders in the Nursery: Childcare Professionals Reshape the Years One to Five, 1920-1940,” in J. Parr, éd., Childhood and Family in Canadian History Intruders, 163.
[43] Jasen. “Race, culture, colonization”, 383-400.
[44] H. M. Little. “What’s the Matter With Obstetrics,” CMAJ (May 1929): 647.
[45] Mitchinson. Giving birth in Canada, 51.
[46] Dr. G. M. Feldert. “Alleviating the Pains of Childbirth,” Canadian Nurse (August 1920): 469-471.
[47] Dye. “History of Childbirth in America”, 102.
[48] Mitchinson. Giving birth in Canada, 167.
[49] Robert Ferguson. “A Plea for Better Obstetrics,” CMAJ (October 1920): 901.
[50] M. MacEachern. Hospital Organization and Management, (Chicago: Physicians’ Record Co., 1935), 866.
[51] M. MacEachern. Hospital Organization and Management, (Chicago: Physicians’ Record Co., 1935), 867.
[52] J. R. Goodall, “Maternal Mortality,” CMAJ (October 1929) : 448.
[53] Thomas F. Baskett (ed). Pages of History in Canadian Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Toronto: Rogers Media, 2003, 132.
[54] Baskett (ed). Pages of History in Canadian Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 132.
[55] W. B. Hendry, “Maternal Welfare,” CMAJ (November 1934) : 516.
[56] M. R. Bow, “Maternal Mortality as a Public Health Problem,” CMAJ (August 1930): 169.
[57] Arnup, Levesque, and Roach. Delivering Motherhood: Maternal Ideologies and Practices in the 19th and 20th Centuries, 47