Human Milk Versus The Motherly Instinct And Traditional Knowledge

The author’s use of rhetoric and rhetorical devices is viewed as her credibility and evidence that supports the themes, feminism and birth control. “In 1910, 4 percent of Americans

Motherhood was an expected part of the wife’s life. Woman would have a large number of babies right after each other although some babies would not survive. “High mortality rates must have overshadowed the experience of motherhood in ways difficult to

The bio-medical model of ill health has been at the forefront of western medicine since the end of the eighteenth century and grew stronger with the progress in modern science. This model underpinned the medical training of doctors. Traditionally medicine had relied on folk remedies passed down from generations and ill health was surrounded in superstition and religious lore with sin and evil spirits as the culprit and root of ill health. The emergence of scientific thinking questioned the traditional religious view of the world and is linked to the progress in medical practice and the rise of the biomedical model. Social and historical events and circumstances were an important factor in its development as explanations about disease

“The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.” This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household responsibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiques in her texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland to bring attention to how society treats women and ideally how motherhood should be. Both of these women believed motherhood was a responsibility of women and they should take it more seriously to create better future generations. This goes beyond the suffrage and equality movement because it dictated that women’s sexual emancipation was equally important as women’s legal emancipation. Being a mother was considered a woman’s most crucial task at this time, therefore the power behind female sexual education and birth control challenged society to feminist.

It is said that breastfeeding is the best food source possible for infants, and that it is the most cost effective way to improve the health of both child and mother, while having the ability to lower rates of gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases (Simard et al, 2005). One of their objectives throughout the years since 1995, was to establish the reason behind diminishing rates of lower income women in Quebec, who choose not to breastfeed their children despite the benefits of breastfeeding outweighing the negative effects. Florence Nightingale’s theory fits within establishing the promotion and understanding as to why some women decide not to breastfeed, as part of her theory believed in the role that the environment plays on our health and decisions regarding it (Alligood & Marriner-Tomey, 2013). It was said that one must move past understanding the person and look more into the environment they are placed within (Pirani, 2016). In the case of the Canadian Prenatal Nutrition Program’s decision, to study this in order to reach the optimal nutrition to a group of women and children shows the influence Nightingale’s theory had on modern day programs. By studying a group of low income women in Quebec who showed the most diminish rates of breastfeeding and instead of focusing on the women individually; the program is able to find external factors

Robin Yates’s paper, “Pregnancy and Childbirth, The 1800’s vs. Now: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting,” was filled with many clear points on the advancement of labor and medicine since the 1800s. This essay was filled with interesting and grabbing facts; however, the structure of the essay needs more support.

Matos, Ribeiro and Guerra write about the benefits of breastfeeding and breast milk and how the antioxidants within the milk help strengthen a babies immune system. They provide a lot of scientific research and information on the different types of antioxidants, vitamins and other nutrients that are within breast milk.

Douglas, Ann Wood. “”The Fashionable Diseases”: Women 's Complaints and Their Treatment in Nineteenth-Century America.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4, no. 1 (1973): 25-52.

In the mid 1930’s childbirth was extremely dangerous and high percentages of women and their babies died sooner or later after birth. As people took notice, medicine took a lot of steps to lower the mortality rates. A lot of deliveries moved from the homes of people to the hospitals with more safer conditions of birth. Throughout the years, hosptials worked on getting their public sanitation, public nutrition and better control of some deadly chronic diseases. By the 1940s medicines surgical techniques and antibodies improved so much that it made the hospital that much more safer for people to deliver children. Medical Doctor, Elizabeth Eden, stated “By the 1950s, routine maternity care, originally designed to improve safety, had become almost too rigid. For example, the fear of infection, a major killer of mothers and babies, led to such practices as taking away all a woman's personal belongings when she entered the hospital; administering large, uncomfortable enemas; prohibiting fathers and other loved ones from entering the maternity area; keeping babies in nurseries, away from their mothers; and handling babies as little as possible. At the time, bottle-feeding was believed to be more sanitary and superior in almost every way to breast-feeding.” Medical Doctor, Elizabeth Eden also stated “The 1960s was a time when national and international organizations were founded to

Starting in November of 1912, “What Every Girl Should Know” by Sanger was being published every Sunday in The Call, a commonly read socialist newspaper. Within her articles, Sanger covered puberty and the changes that occurred as a result, the functions of the reproductive system, and the causes and ways to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. At the time, the Comstock laws were in place which defined contraceptives obscene and made it illegal for information regarding contraceptives to be sent through the U.S Postal Service. For this reason, “What Every Girl Should Know” was no longer allowed to be published, the last article published was blank except for the words “What Every Girl Should Know. NOTHING! By order of the Post Office Department” (qtd. in Lader 37). Refusing to give up, Sanger prepared herself to fight the Comstock Laws and provide the women and girls of New York with information about contraceptives and their bodies. From 1913 to 1914, Sanger travelled to Paris. At this time in Europe, contraceptives were much more accepted and information was plentiful. Sanger spent her days researching and gathered a collection of information on the best and latest douches, sponges, suppositories, and pessaries. She also bought some of the devices to bring back with her to the United States. Having gathered enough research, Sanger headed back to the United States. In

Throughout Sherwin B. Nuland’s book The Doctor’s Plague, Nuland discusses the devastating epidemic of childbed fever. One out of six women to give birth in the First Division at the Krankenhaus hospital in Vienna, Austria was to succumb to this supposed mystery illness. Childbed fever was a harrowing complication not only at the Krankenhaus in Vienna, but all over other parts of Europe as well. Nuland takes us through this occasion and draws his attention to Ignac Semmelweis, an assistant physician at Krankenhaus who unearths the real reason behind the incredibly high mortality rate of expectant new to be mothers. Semmelweis traces the origin of this mysterious illness to the delivering doctors and students of the hospital in the First division

ADHD, defiance disorder, pregnancy, these are just few of the things medicalized in the West (Davies 1995). With the rising prestige of Doctors in the 19th century, came a widening of the gap of knowledge between Doctors and the general population (Davies 1995). Doctors have kept a sort of lock on medical knowledge, enabling them to medicalize all sorts of “issues” aided by the idea of the medical mystique. But with the emergence of medicalization and cures that are being searched for by Doctors, a new problem has arisen. This fixation on curing illnesses has led to Doctors viewing patients as experiments and not as human beings, this is seen especially in technologically advanced societies as exemplified in the movie Wit. In addition to this new problem, there are clear establishments of hierarchy between medical professionals such as Doctors and nurses as well as the emotional detachments with the patients which can lead to patients feeling left out and alone.

Breast feeding has been in practice for a very long time, as early as 2000 BC. Before the invention of formula, bottles, and pumps this was the safest most common way for a mother to feed their infants. In fact, for 99% of human history breast milk was the sole source of nutrition for children until the age of two. In today’s society there are many different and opposing personal stand points on where or not a mother should breast feed their children. It is a very controversial topic with many variables. In breast feeding there are several benefits, reasons, and cultural effects that go into making the decision to engage or stay away from breast feeding. There is also historical causes and cultural differences that lead influence a mothers

This paper will focus on the differences and conflicts between doctors and midwifes. Doctors have been been the lead care providers for women for hundreds of years. Just short of one-hundred years ago Mary Breckinridge became the first midwife in the united states. Today there doctors and midwives have an ongoing feud. Many doctors feel as if midwives are uneducated and are not trained enough to provide health care to women, and do not agree with their more natural approach to child birth. However there conflict is slowly but surly being resolved, as many health care facilities are allowing midwives to have more authority in the work place. Secondly, this paper will go over the differences between doctors and midwives, many people are uneducated

Hearing the word midwife leaves many people thinking of unprofessional, inexperienced women who help deliver babies naturally, without the help of medication. In truth, nurse-midwives are registered nurses who have attended additional schooling for women’s health and are taught to make women feel as comfortable as possible. In the beginning, remedies were the females’ legacies, their “birthright”; these females were known as “wise-women by the people, witches of charlatans by authorities”. (Ehrenreich, 1973). “Females were wanderers, traveling from one place to another, healing the sick and wounded.” (Ehrenreich 1973). These women were among the first human healers and they were especially helpful when it came to childbearing. The midwives