Babies for the nation : the medicalization of motherhood in Quebec, 1910-1970

Baillargeon, Denyse 1954- (Author).

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 consult them, and why.

Record details

ISBN: 1554582725
ISBN: 9781554582723
Physical Description: 1 online resource (xiii, 323 pages) : illustrations.
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Publisher: Waterloo, Ont. : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, ©2009.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	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.
Restrictions on Access Note:	NLC staff and students only.
Language Note:	Text chiefly in English. Includes some text in French, as well as some text presented in parallel columns of French and English.
Source of Description Note:	Print version record.