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Article ID: CBB001421093

Food, Growth and Time: Elsie Widdowson's and Robert Mccance's Research into Prenatal and Early Postnatal Growth (2014)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 47, Part B
Issue: Part B
Pages: 267-277
Publication date: 2014
Language: English

Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: Article in a special issue, “Transforming Pregnancy Since 1900”

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Nutrition; dietetics Obstetrics and pregnancy Malnutrition Food and foods Science and war; science and the military World War II Prenatal care and diagnosis Great Britain Widdowson, Elsie May McCance, Robert Alexander

Cambridge scientists Robert McCance and Elsie Widdowson are best known for their work on the British food tables and wartime food rations, but it is their research on prenatal and early postnatal growth that is today seen as a foundation of the fields studying the impact of environment upon prenatal development and, consequently, adult disease. In this essay I situate McCance's and Widdowson's 1940s human and 1950s experimental studies in the context of pre-war concerns with fetal growth and development, especially within biochemistry, physiology and agriculture; and the Second World War and post-war focus on the effects of undernutrition during pregnancy upon the fetus. I relate Widdowson's and McCance's research on the long-term effects of early undernutrition to the concern with recovery from early trauma so pertinent in post-war Europe and with sensitive (critical) periods, a concept of high importance across different fields. Finally I discuss how, following a hiatus in which fetal physiology engaged with different questions and stressed fetal autonomy, interest in the impact of environment upon prenatal growth and development revived towards the end of the twentieth century. The new field of developmental origins of health and disease, I suggest, has provided a context in which Widdowson's and McCance's work has regained importance.

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Article Olszynko-Gryn, Jesse (2014) The Demand for Pregnancy Testing: The Aschheim--Zondek Reaction, Diagnostic Versatility, and Laboratory Services in 1930s Britain. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 233-247). unapi

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