The health and welfare of children became an area of concern and action in the early decades of the twentieth century. This concern would develop an ever-broader remit during the course of the century, moving from anxiety about high death rates, physical health and the 'unfit', to embrace all children and the mental health and the psychological well-being of individuals. This volume emerged out of an Anglo-Dutch Workshop held at the University of Warwick in July 1999, and is the first book to explore child health in the twentieth century in a comparative perspective, focussing on such issues...

First published in 1992, this book explores the efforts to counteract the high maternal and infant death rates present between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second World War. It looks at the problem in five different continents and shows the varying approaches used by the governments, institutions and individuals in those countries. Contributors display how policy and practice have been shaped by the structure of maternity services, nationalism, the conflict of colonization and cultural factors. In doing so, they illustrate how welfare policy and funding were moulded throughout...

Midwives, Society and Childbirth is the first book to examine midwives' lives and work in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on a national and international scale. Focusing on six countries from Europe, the approach is interdisciplinary with the studies written by a diverse team of social, medical and midwifery historians, sociologists, and those with experience in delivering childbirth services. Questioning for the first time many conventional historical assumptions, this book is fundamental to a better understanding of the effect on midwives of the unprecedented progress of science in...