A Practical Treatise On Midwifery Containing The Result Of Sixteen Thousand Six Hundred And Fifty Four Births In Dublin Lying In Hospital During A Period Of Seven Years Commencing 1826

Author : Robert Woods
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191609226
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Download or read book Death before Birth written by Robert Woods and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Considering its importance, the history of fetal health and mortality remains a neglected area. Medical historians have tended to focus on maternal mortality and professional conflicts between midwives rather than on the unborn, while among the social scientists demographers and epidemiologists have until recently devoted most of their attention to infants and children. Death before Birth redresses this imbalance, redirecting attention to the fetus. A study of fetal health from the seventeenth century to the present day, it is the first book to offer an historical perspective on the subject and to combine both medical history and epidemiological and demographic research, using long-term and comparative perspectives, including a strong international comparative element, across both Europe and North America. The book not only provides an account of how fetal health and the risks facing the unborn (miscarriages, abortions, stillbirths etc) have changed, it also offers an interpretation of the causes, one that focuses on the role of obstetrics and the epidemiology of maternal infections. Along the way, it pays detailed attention to a host of related themes, such as varying cultural practices in the recognition of stillbirths; the age pattern of mortality risk between conception and live birth; comparative trends in late-fetal mortality and their causes; fetal mortality and obstetric care during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; and the contrasting approaches of the pathologists and 'social epidemiologists' to the causes of fetal death. The book concludes with a study of the 'fetus as patient', focusing on issues surrounding the legalization of abortion in many Western countries and the public health challenges of persistently high mortality in less developed countries.