The subject of medicalisation of childbirth in colonial India has
so far been identified with three major themes: the attempt to
reform or 'sanitise' the site of birthing practices, establishing
lying-in hospitals and replacing traditional birth attendants with
trained midwives and qualified female doctors. This book, part of
the series The Social History of Health and Medicine in South Asia,
looks at the interactions between childbirth and midwifery
practices and colonial modernities. Taking eastern India as a case
study and related research from other areas, with hard empirical
data from local government bodies, municipal corporations and
district boards, it goes beyond the conventional narrative to show
how the late nineteenth-century initiatives to reform birthing
practices were essentially a modernist response of the
western-educated colonised middle class to the colonial critique of
Indian sociocultural codes. It provides a perceptive historical
analysis of how institutionalisation of midwifery was shaped by the
debates on the women's question, nationalism and colonial public
health policies, all intersecting in the interwar years. The study
traces the beginning of medicalisation of childbirth, the
professionalisation of obstetrics, the agency of male doctors,
inclusion of midwifery as an academic subject in medical colleges
and consequences of maternal care and infant welfare. This book
will greatly interest scholars and researchers in history, social
medicine, public policy, gender studies and South Asian studies.
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