Report Broken Link

Health guides for unattended births in New Zealand and Australia 1900-1950

Abstract:

Background: In the early twentieth century, most women in Australia and New Zealand gave birth at home. As in colonial times, women living in the isolated New Zealand backblocks or Australian bush without access to a midwife, nurse or doctor, or women in towns who could not afford their service, gave birth with only a neighbouring woman, husband or older child to help. Most households had a domestic health guide as a source of health information and support in caring for themselves and others. This guide might therefore be the only assistance available to women and their lay attendants during childbirth. Aim: This research aimed to identify the information domestic health guides provided on childbirth, particularly if addressed to a person assisting the woman in the absence of a midwife, nurse or doctor, and to compare it with information midwives were expected to know. Methods: Using historical methodology, the researchers analysed the childbirth information in a range of domestic health guides available in Australia and New Zealand, 1900-1950. The information was also compared with midwifery textbooks and considered within the context of the increasing professionalisation of midwifery to discover how it reflected boundaries between lay and professional knowledge and practice. Findings: Some domestic health guides provided as detailed information as midwifery texts but without their scientific rationale that was a mark of professional knowledge and practice. Conclusion: By providing clear information, domestic health guides could have been a significant part of the culture of self-reliance and mutual aid, and of the cultures of health in both rural and urban environments in New Zealand and Australia in this time period.

 view online article View Document

Health guides, historical research, history of midwifery, home birth