Difference between revisions of "Week 6 Questions/Comments-327 09"
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The article “On the Importance of the Obsterick Art” was very interesting and covered general concepts of childbirth (such as positions, people present, the association with medicine, etc) we take for granted today that were not so in early America. I personally found it interesting that women did not lie in bed to deliver until the male midwife came into practice and was for modesty, rather than comfort or ease. I was also horrified at many of the tales of when deliveries went wrong such as on page 84, jerking the child out, dismembering the infant with hooks, and page 88 of accidental mutilations of the infant by “blind” male midwifes. I am frankly surprised as many children and women survived as they did, though it definitely makes more since for explaining to the high death rates! Yeiks! I thought the author could have spend more time on the explanation of the transition of birth to being a medical issue, as well as tying the concepts together such as birth being medical, medical being male role due to the incapability of the female mind, to changes in the understanding of the necessity of pain for females, and changes in ideas of decorum and male interaction in the delivery room. I thought this all could have been analyzed better as well as further explaining the concept of how childbirth is related to nation building and new national identities as talked about on page 78 which I don’t think she explained very well if at all. – Elyse Lawrence | The article “On the Importance of the Obsterick Art” was very interesting and covered general concepts of childbirth (such as positions, people present, the association with medicine, etc) we take for granted today that were not so in early America. I personally found it interesting that women did not lie in bed to deliver until the male midwife came into practice and was for modesty, rather than comfort or ease. I was also horrified at many of the tales of when deliveries went wrong such as on page 84, jerking the child out, dismembering the infant with hooks, and page 88 of accidental mutilations of the infant by “blind” male midwifes. I am frankly surprised as many children and women survived as they did, though it definitely makes more since for explaining to the high death rates! Yeiks! I thought the author could have spend more time on the explanation of the transition of birth to being a medical issue, as well as tying the concepts together such as birth being medical, medical being male role due to the incapability of the female mind, to changes in the understanding of the necessity of pain for females, and changes in ideas of decorum and male interaction in the delivery room. I thought this all could have been analyzed better as well as further explaining the concept of how childbirth is related to nation building and new national identities as talked about on page 78 which I don’t think she explained very well if at all. – Elyse Lawrence | ||
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| + | I agree with Elyse that the author's argument could have been analyzed better. While we get many male views on the transition of childbirth going from an "open ceremony" (89) towards a more private event, there was a lack of female voice in the primary sources. There was only one primary source that interpreted how women felt about this transition, Elizabeth Drinker, and her views reinforce the use of male physicians. Was there an active female resistance to using male physicians? What I found even more interesting were the economic implications of the transition; families were dishing out the "12 to $15 minimum fee" (85) in 1806 in order to increase the likelihood of a safe delivery. Two-hundred years ago this probably would have been a significant amount of money and leaves me with the impression that families were openly and willingly turning to male doctors for childbirth assistance. Finally, I found it strange that the author did not mention changing mortality rates among women giving birth. I would think this too would be a factor in the transition out of using midwives. -Seth Mintzer | ||
I thought this article was very interesting. When I read about Cotton Mather's pamphlet he gave to midwives for distribution it made me laugh. He wrote that "your death has entered into you" and basically described pregnancy as a lethal condition. I understand that a lot of women died in childbirth but it's hard to believe that Mather actually distributed that pamphlet. Was he trying to scare the local women out of having children? I'm pretty sure if I was a woman at this time, and someone gave me the pamphlet, I would have been scared to death. Especially since the most women were uneducated and even those that were educated probably knew little to nothing about obsterics. -Katelyn LEase | I thought this article was very interesting. When I read about Cotton Mather's pamphlet he gave to midwives for distribution it made me laugh. He wrote that "your death has entered into you" and basically described pregnancy as a lethal condition. I understand that a lot of women died in childbirth but it's hard to believe that Mather actually distributed that pamphlet. Was he trying to scare the local women out of having children? I'm pretty sure if I was a woman at this time, and someone gave me the pamphlet, I would have been scared to death. Especially since the most women were uneducated and even those that were educated probably knew little to nothing about obsterics. -Katelyn LEase | ||
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