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1 Introduction I n the early 20th century very few women consulted a doctor during pregnancy. When they did, it was often in order to confirm their “condition ” after feeling the baby move, or during the third trimester to obtain a better idea of the birth date, or sometimes simply to warn the doctor that his services would soon be needed. In urban areas, women were indeed calling increasingly on the services of a doctor when giving birth (an event that always took place at home), but this was the only part played by the doctor. He—for at the time only male doctors attended at births—would not see the mother for postpartum examinations, nor would he examine the infant, for whom the mother would care, adopting the methods of family and friends and the advice of other mothers she knew. If, officially, the practice of midwifery had ceased to exist at the end of the 19th century, it still happened that in outlying areas and in working-class city neighbourhoods women often delivered their baby with the help of female relatives or neighbours known to possess midwifery skills.1 The great-granddaughters of this generation of women would adopt a very different approach. Indeed, by the 1960s it had become almost unthinkable not to see a doctor regularly all through the pregnancy. Blood and urine tests, and sometimes X-ray examinations, had became imperative; a diet had to be followed, vitamin supplements taken, and the mother-to-be was even expected to attend prenatal classes, a novelty at the time. She was also encouraged to read The Canadian Mother and Child by Dr. Ernest Couture— unless of course she preferred to take her information from his celebrated American colleague, Dr. Benjamin Spock. The birth would take place in hospital with only hospital staff attending, and regular visits to the doctor would follow, as much to ensure the mother’s proper recovery from the delivery as to check the progress and health of the child. The part played by doctors during pregnancy and birth, like the medical care of young children, had come to be taken for granted, a practice required by common sense that no one would dream of questioning. 2 babies FoR tHe nation This book deals with the socio-medical transformation outlined above, which we call the medicalization of maternity. The expression refers to the transformation of the pregnancy, birth, and newborn care into matters that required medical attention or the mediation of medical science, a process that took place throughout the entire Western world in the 20th century. Why did these changes occur? What social, economic, political, and ideological forces contributed to the medicalization of maternity and determined its evolution? What form did this development take in the specific context of Quebec society? Apart from doctors, who else played a part? How could doctors convince women that they had to be consulted? Why, and under what conditions, did the latter decide to follow their recommendations? Such are the fundamental questions that provide the starting point of this study. Situated at the intersection of several different historiographies, it draws on studies dealing with the history of women, of the family, and of feminism, as well as on the history of health and of the health professions, and with the new political history as it takes a closer look at the medicalization of pregnancy and early infancy in Quebec between 1910 and 1970. While it is not entirely overlooked, the medicalization of the delivery itself will be treated in less detail, given that this has already been dealt with elsewhere.2 F or almost 20 years, feminist historiography3 has paid considerable attention to the study of maternity. In establishing its historicity, these studies have shown in particular that maternity, seen as an entirely private and personal matter, has long been the target of social measures aimed at defining the obligations of motherhood in relation to the economic and political requirements and values of the surrounding society.4 Referring to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s exhortations to mothers to breastfeed their babies, or to the pro-birth policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert during the colonial period , to quote only two examples, these analyses clearly show that motherhood was already considered an issue of national importance in the 17th and 18th centuries.5 According to a recent analysis of the rhetoric of “separate spheres,” an ideology characteristic of the 19th century that considered the home to be the specific sphere...

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