Download or read book Tending Mothers and the Fruits of the Womb written by Gabrielle Robilliard and published by Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The early modern period saw a fundamental shift in the history of childbirth from midwifery as a traditional, largely female occupation to modern obstetrics. The seeds of this transformation were sown in the cities, where municipal governments and their medical officials began reworking the often centuries-old systems of municipal midwifery. In Leipzig they overhauled midwife education and in the 1730s appointed a municipal man-midwife. But why all the commotion about midwifery? How 'novel' were these developments really? And how did all these changes affect the everyday work of the city's midwives? Drawing on a vast array of administrative sources, Gabrielle Robilliard explores the world of Leipzig's midwives and early man-midwives from 1650 to 1810. Employing a prosopographical approach, she illuminates in minute detail the occupational culture and structure of both official and unofficial midwifery within the city-including social and economic milieus, client networking practices, and inter- and intraprofessional rivalries-and examines the nature of the encounter between traditional practice and new ways of organising urban midwifery provision.