SOC244H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Parenting Styles, Secondary Sex Characteristic, Ambert
Document Summary
Lecture 6 the medicalization of birthing, mothering and parenting. What birth has done for doctors? (wertz, 1983) Before the bacteriological discoveries of koch and pasteur (1870s) very little clinical medicine was scientific. Late eighteenth century midwife diary: over 1000 births, only four maternal deaths (nash, 1904) Peter chamberlen-charmerlen family were man-midwives to the royal family. Obstetrics or midwifery: first specialty to be taught in american medical schools. Money to be earned a major impetus. Main reasons for decline of female midwife (wertz and wertz, 1997) Attitudes that women could not be confronted with the facts of medicine. Increased belief in and use of medical technology, women have seen their control over childbirth decline. Act between patient and doctor, not between women and women. Birthing as a highly bureaucratic and autocratic practice. Values the supremacy of science, technology and patriarchy. Birthing as both a social and physiological function. Has the medicalization of birth gone too far .
