Midwives Under Pressure
Episode 1
Midwives might be under pressure, caught between imperatives to care for a birthing woman and to answer to local authorities. In sixteenth century German towns, for example, midwives were told to report any suspicions they had about a woman who might have ended a pregnancy. Midwives were also instructed to interrogate unwed women about paternity during labor so that child support could be collected from the father.
Further Reading
"'Their Negro Nanny was with Child By a white man’ : Gossip, Sex, and Slavery in an Eighteenth-Century New England Town"
Emily Jeannine Clark, The William and Mary Quarterly, Volume 79, Number 4, October 2022. Read here.
"The Midwives of South Germany and the Public/Private Dichotomy"
M. E. Wiesner in The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe, ed. Hilary Marland, (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 77-94. Read here.