Article ID: CBB001252855

Saving Mothers' and Children's Lives? The Performance of German Lying-in Hospitals in the Late-Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries (2013)

unapi

Medical men, turning to midwifery in the eighteenth century, claimed that they were able to save the lives of mothers and children, jeopardized by "ignorant" midwives. Consequentially, modern scholars have tried to assess the progress of obstetrics and the merits of lying-in hospitals on the basis of maternal and, more rarely, perinatal mortality rates. The data and methodological problems involved, however, have been largely ignored. Here they are discussed in the light of a micro-study based on detailed archival evidence from Göttingen University's lying-in hospital, founded in 1751. Its mortality data are analyzed in comparison to those from other German and some foreign maternity hospitals. In a further step, perinatal and maternal mortality in hospitals is compared to that in normal home deliveries, attended by female midwives. By linking the findings to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates about the pros and cons of lying-in hospitals, further questions are raised.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001252855/

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Authors & Contributors
Schlumbohm, Jürgen
Woods, Robert
Arena, Francesca
Nichols, Marcia D.
Williams, Samantha
Veit, Patrice
Concepts
Obstetrics and pregnancy
Nurse midwives
Medicine
Medicine and gender
Childbirth
Hospitals and clinics
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
17th century
Meiji period (Japan, 1868-1910)
Edo period (Japan, 1603-1868)
Places
United States
Great Britain
Germany
Brazil
Southern states (U.S.)
Taiwan
Institutions
Universität Göttingen
Göttingen. Universität
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