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OverviewIn England in the seventeenth century, childbirth was the province of women. The midwife ran the birth, helped by female gossips; men, including the doctors of the day, were excluded both from the delivery and from the subsequent month of lying-in.But in the eighteenth century there emerged a new practitioner: the man-midwife who acted in lieu of a midwife and delivered normal births. By the late eighteenth century, men-midwives had achieved a permanent place in the management of childbirth, especially in the most lucrative spheres of practice.Why did women desert the traditional midwife? How was it that a domain of female control and collective solidarity became instead a region of male medical practice? What had broken down the barrier that had formerly excluded the male practitioner from the management of birth?This confident and authoritative work explores and explains a remarkable transformation--a shift not just in medical practices but in gender relations. Exploring the sociocultural dimensions of childbirth, Wilson argues with great skill that it was not the desires of medical men but the choices of mothers that summoned man-midwifery into being. Full Product DetailsAuthor: WilsonPublisher: Harvard University Press Imprint: Harvard University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.490kg ISBN: 9780674543232ISBN 10: 0674543238 Pages: 256 Publication Date: 16 June 1995 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Out of Stock Indefinitely Availability: Awaiting stock Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationAdrian Wilson is Lecturer in the History of Medicine, University of Leeds. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |