Babies for the nation : the medicalization of motherhood in Quebec, 1910-1970 / Denyse Baillargeon ; translated by W. Donald Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baillargeon, Denyse, 1954-

Contributor:

Wilson, W. Donald, 1938-

Series:

Studies in childhood and family in Canada.

Studies in childhood and family in Canada

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Obstetrics--Social aspects--Quebec (Province)--History--20th century.

Social control--Quebec (Province)--History--20th century.

Maternal health services--Quebec (Province)--History--20th century.

Newborn infants--Care--Quebec (Province)--History--20th century.

Newborn infants--Mortality--Quebec (Province)--History--20th century.

Child care--Quebec (Province)--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (340 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Described by some as a ""necropolis for babies,"" the province of Quebec in the early twentieth century recorded infant mortality rates, particularly among French-speaking Catholics, that were among the highest in the Western world. This ""bleeding of the nation"" gave birth to a vast movement for child welfare that paved the way for a medicalization of childbearing. In Babies for the Nation, basing her analysis on extensive documentary research and more than fifty interviews with mothers, Denyse Baillargeon sets out to understand how doctors were able to convince women to

Contents:

Chapter 1. A "Bad Mother" Called Quebec

An Early Death

Dying While Giving Life

Chapter 2. A Very National Infant Mortality Rate

The Nation in Peril, 1910-1940

A National Dearth of Children, 1940-1970

Chapter 3. Let Us Have the Mother and the Child Is Ours

The Ignorance of Mothers

Teach Over and Over

Chapter 4. A School for Mothers

Clinics for Newborns

Home Care

The Victorian Order of Nurses

The Nurses from the "Met"

The Assistance maternelle

Services for Mothers Outside the Major Centres

Prenatal Clinics

Public Lectures and the Distribution of Documents

Chapter 5. Bitter Struggles

All for One

General Practitioners and Public Health Officials

General Practitioners and the Assistance maternelle de Montréal

Doctors and Nurses

Physicians and "Maternalist" Feminists

Church and State

Chapter 6. The Quebec Mother and Child

Care for Expectant Women

Care for Babies

To Read While Caring for Baby

Relations with Doctors and Nurses

Epilogue: To Have or Not to Have ...

Appendix 1. Sources

Appendix 2. Infant Mortality Rates, Canada and the Provinces, 1926-1965.

Notes:

Translation of: Un Quebec en mal d'enfants.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9786612534362

9781282534360

128253436X

9781554582723

1554582725

OCLC:

659584777