Can I get bluesky to do my job for me like twitter used to? Attn: does anyone know of any literature on the history of home births in the UK? - ThreadSky

agnesjuliet.bsky.social • 100 days ago

Can I get bluesky to do my job for me like twitter used to?

Attn: does anyone know of any literature on the history of home births in the UK?

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dohertyta.bsky.social•99 days ago

Ok, so I thought of some more... Delivered at Home (1995) by Julia Allison covers 1948 to 1972 in Nottingham

agnesjuliet.bsky.social•99 days ago

Thank you this is all SO helpful! I'm definitely going to follow up on the primary source stuff - I'm particularly interested in the 70s-90s, against the backdrop of second-wave feminism, 'patient-centred care', and changing childbirth etc.

dohertyta.bsky.social•99 days ago

give me a nudge when you're ready :)

erinacean.bsky.social•99 days ago

Ahah! this was just after my time - in the pipeline as I was on the way out - but very relevant I suspect to your concerns: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/fjg4s86y

dohertyta.bsky.social•99 days ago

But let me know if you want help with original sources - there's a lot more online these dates. e.g. through Gale we've digitised 22 nursing journals 1891-1986 inc Queen's Nurse & District Nursing, so lots of contemporary accounts at yr fingertips https://www.gale.com/intl/c/womens-studies-archive-female-forerunners-worldwide

dohertyta.bsky.social•99 days ago

Someone else has said Safer Childbirth https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4899-2975-4.

Other than what's already been covered I can't think of any literature.....

drjennyhall-5.bsky.social•99 days ago

I would suggest you look at Julia Allison’s study on Tudor midwives which she then explored going forward. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780429324123-1/introduction-julia-allison

rwjdingwall.bsky.social•100 days ago

There is a chapter on Midwifery in Dingwall, Rafferty and Webster, An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing (1988) that nails quite a few myths. Probably some more up to date stuff since but possibly a place to start?
https://www.routledge.com/An-Introduction-to-the-Social-History-of-Nursing/Dingwall-Rafferty-Webster/p/book/9780415017862

louknightsmccudden.bsky.social•100 days ago

It depends how far back you're looking but are any of these any use?

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4899-2975-4

https://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/choice-policy-and-practice-in-maternity-care-since-1948

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8574542/

meganbradbury.bsky.social•100 days ago

There’s a lot in ‘Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood’ by Helen Charman. It’s a cracking book. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/443791/mother-state-by-charman-helen/9780241512821

meganbradbury.bsky.social•99 days ago

I only caught a snippet of this this morning, so I don’t know how relevant it is, but thought it might be of interest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002546t?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

agnesjuliet.bsky.social•99 days ago

Oh thanks that looks super useful actually

meganbradbury.bsky.social•99 days ago

Hurrah!

erinacean.bsky.social•96 days ago

Just floated up in memory: Jalland and Hooper, Women from birth to death : the female life cycle in Britain 1830-1914 (1985): if this is the book I think I remember, used a lot of letters, diaries, etc, on (mostly elite?) women's experiences inc childbirth.

erinacean.bsky.social•100 days ago

I'm a bit out of touch since retiring from Wellcome and therefore not knowing who is working on Dick Read, NCT etc: however: Nicky Leap and Billie Hunter, The Midwife's Tale: An Oral History from Handywoman to Professional Midwife Scarlet Press, London, 1993 might be worth looking at 1/2

erinacean.bsky.social•100 days ago

Though when I reviewed it back in the dim mists of time http://www.lesleyahall.net/midwife.htm I thought it failed to engage with such contemporary sources as WCG's Maternity, Pember Reeves's Round About a Pound a Week, and Spring-Rice's Working Class Wives, as well as Stopes' Mother England

erinacean.bsky.social•100 days ago

And of course I forgot Susan Williams' work on the National Birthday Trust Fund, initially about improving conditions (e.g. analgesia) for home deliveries: Women and Childbirth in the Twentieth Century: History of the National Birthday Trust Fund, 1928-93

erinacean.bsky.social•100 days ago

There is an edited selection of letters to Dick Read, Mary Thomas (ed) Post-War Mothers: Childbirth Letters to Grantly Dick-Read, 1946-1956 but they are mostly about the horror of birth in hospital

amywilsonstorey.bsky.social•96 days ago

This may be a little too early for you, but i can heartily recommend https://uolpress.co.uk/book/giving-birth-in-eighteenth-century-england/ @sarahfoxhistory.bsky.social

heathergov.bsky.social•96 days ago

You may want a political / sociological perspective for further background as well. There is also The Politics of Maternity by Rosemary Mander and Jo Lawless.

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