Article ID: CBB689753274

Attending the birth: competition for obstetrical training by medical students and midwives in nineteenth-century France (2021)

unapi

Though male doctors gained prominence at the bedsides of pregnant mothers in nineteenth-century Europe, the clinical training they received in medical academies remained cursory. In France, to supplement the medical faculties, the government set up schools for both health officers and midwives which were meant to teach practical obstetrics. This paper focusses on the city of Arras, where these two groups of students competed for the limited numbers of pregnant patients on which to practice their future professions. Like many in their field, two prominent instructors in Arras at each end of the century promoted male obstetrical education over female, arguing that practical education for health officers would lead to safer births for mothers and infants. By the 1870s, the obstetrics instructor adopted germ theory, tying improved hygiene and thus mortality rates to male students’ access to hospitalised patients. Despite their arguments, in Arras, the male students never gained priority in clinical obstetrical training, which midwifery students kept. To keep male students out of maternity wards, local administrators used fears that gender mixing would lead to immoral acts or thoughts. In doing so, they protected the traditional system of midwifery rather than invest in more costly male medical education. Championing midwifery students’ rights to the spaces and bodies needed for their education, however, delayed adoption of hygiene and antiseptic practices that led to lower maternal mortality. Unable to adapt to changing requirements by the state, the medical school closed in 1883, while the midwifery programme thrived until the 1960s.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB689753274/

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Authors & Contributors
Buehler, Scottie Hale
Heidt-Forsythe, Erin
Edwell, Jennifer
Nott, John
Seitz, Emily A.
Anna Harris
Concepts
Obstetrics and pregnancy
Midwifery
Physicians; doctors
Medical education and teaching
Medicine and gender
Medicine
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
20th century, early
Early modern
Modern
Places
France
United States
Italy
Great Britain
Philadelphia, PA
Peru
Institutions
Société Royale de Médecine
Institut Pasteur, Paris
Universität Göttingen
University of Edinburgh
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