Pathology, Danger, and Power: Women's and Physicians' Views of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Weimar Germany
Identifieur interne : 000A49 ( Main/Exploration ); précédent : 000A48; suivant : 000A50Pathology, Danger, and Power: Women's and Physicians' Views of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Weimar Germany
Auteurs : Patricia R. Stokes [Allemagne]Source :
- Social History of Medicine [ 0951-631X ] ; 2000-12.
Abstract
This article shows how the very real risks of reproduction were culturally constituted by expectant mothers and physicians in Germany following the First World War. Both saw a strong potential for maternal and fetal death and injury. However, expectant mothers and physicians differed in the extent to which they regarded risk as contingent or inherent. Most physicians believed that pregnancy and childbirth first became dangerous in conjunction with a wide variety of other ailments, including complications specific to pregnancy. This view of pathology held a promise of prevention or at least treatment. Physicians further participated in inventing new, modern understandings of pathology, which also encompassed factory work as a reproductive hazard. Expectant mothers, in contrast, viewed pregnancy and childbirth as inherently dangerous based on their experiences and those of the women they knew, which not infrequently involved illness, disability, or close encounters with death. Many of them also held the ancient idea that a woman could harm the foetus with her imagination. As a result, though women varied in their beliefs (influenced by class, education, region, and religion), as a group they feared childbirth. Paradoxically, competition among lay and medical ideas gave women new options while also gradually enhancing medical authority.
Url:
DOI: 10.1093/shm/13.3.359
Affiliations:
Links toward previous steps (curation, corpus...)
Le document en format XML
<record><TEI wicri:istexFullTextTei="biblStruct"><teiHeader><fileDesc><titleStmt><title>Pathology, Danger, and Power: Women's and Physicians' Views of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Weimar Germany</title><author wicri:is="90%"><name sortKey="Stokes, Patricia R" sort="Stokes, Patricia R" uniqKey="Stokes P" first="Patricia R." last="Stokes">Patricia R. Stokes</name></author></titleStmt><publicationStmt><idno type="wicri:source">ISTEX</idno><idno type="RBID">ISTEX:73AEBC6211DA54B413C5E7B718056D84E68EDA30</idno><date when="2000" year="2000">2000</date><idno type="doi">10.1093/shm/13.3.359</idno><idno type="url">https://api.istex.fr/document/73AEBC6211DA54B413C5E7B718056D84E68EDA30/fulltext/pdf</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Corpus">000A28</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Curation">000A16</idno><idno type="wicri:Area/Main/Exploration">000A49</idno><idno type="wicri:explorRef" wicri:stream="Main" wicri:step="Exploration">000A49</idno></publicationStmt><sourceDesc><biblStruct><analytic><title level="a">Pathology, Danger, and Power: Women's and Physicians' Views of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Weimar Germany</title><author wicri:is="90%"><name sortKey="Stokes, Patricia R" sort="Stokes, Patricia R" uniqKey="Stokes P" first="Patricia R." last="Stokes">Patricia R. Stokes</name><affiliation wicri:level="3"><country wicri:rule="url">Allemagne</country><wicri:regionArea>Essener Strasse 22, 10555 Berlin</wicri:regionArea><placeName><region type="land" nuts="3">Berlin</region><settlement type="city">Berlin</settlement></placeName></affiliation></author></analytic><monogr></monogr><series><title level="j">Social History of Medicine</title><idno type="ISSN">0951-631X</idno><idno type="eISSN">1477-4666</idno><imprint><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><date type="published" when="2000-12">2000-12</date><biblScope unit="volume">13</biblScope><biblScope unit="issue">3</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" from="359">359</biblScope><biblScope unit="page" to="380">380</biblScope></imprint><idno type="ISSN">0951-631X</idno></series><idno type="istex">73AEBC6211DA54B413C5E7B718056D84E68EDA30</idno><idno type="DOI">10.1093/shm/13.3.359</idno><idno type="ArticleID">13.3.359</idno></biblStruct></sourceDesc><seriesStmt><idno type="ISSN">0951-631X</idno></seriesStmt></fileDesc><profileDesc><textClass></textClass><langUsage><language ident="en">en</language></langUsage></profileDesc></teiHeader><front><div type="abstract">This article shows how the very real risks of reproduction were culturally constituted by expectant mothers and physicians in Germany following the First World War. Both saw a strong potential for maternal and fetal death and injury. However, expectant mothers and physicians differed in the extent to which they regarded risk as contingent or inherent. Most physicians believed that pregnancy and childbirth first became dangerous in conjunction with a wide variety of other ailments, including complications specific to pregnancy. This view of pathology held a promise of prevention or at least treatment. Physicians further participated in inventing new, modern understandings of pathology, which also encompassed factory work as a reproductive hazard. Expectant mothers, in contrast, viewed pregnancy and childbirth as inherently dangerous based on their experiences and those of the women they knew, which not infrequently involved illness, disability, or close encounters with death. Many of them also held the ancient idea that a woman could harm the foetus with her imagination. As a result, though women varied in their beliefs (influenced by class, education, region, and religion), as a group they feared childbirth. Paradoxically, competition among lay and medical ideas gave women new options while also gradually enhancing medical authority.</div></front></TEI><affiliations><list><country><li>Allemagne</li></country><region><li>Berlin</li></region><settlement><li>Berlin</li></settlement></list><tree><country name="Allemagne"><region name="Berlin"><name sortKey="Stokes, Patricia R" sort="Stokes, Patricia R" uniqKey="Stokes P" first="Patricia R." last="Stokes">Patricia R. Stokes</name></region></country></tree></affiliations></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/Wicri/Musique/explor/SchutzV1/Data/Main/Exploration
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 000A49 | SxmlIndent | more
Ou
HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/Main/Exploration/biblio.hfd -nk 000A49 | SxmlIndent | more
Pour mettre un lien sur cette page dans le réseau Wicri
{{Explor lien
|wiki= Wicri/Musique
|area= SchutzV1
|flux= Main
|étape= Exploration
|type= RBID
|clé= ISTEX:73AEBC6211DA54B413C5E7B718056D84E68EDA30
|texte= Pathology, Danger, and Power: Women's and Physicians' Views of Pregnancy and Childbirth in Weimar Germany
}}
| This area was generated with Dilib version V0.6.38. |  |