Dangerous Motherhood: Insanity and Childbirth in Victorian Britain

Dangerous Motherhood is the first study of the close and complex relationship between mental disorder and childbirth. Exploring the relationship between women, their families and their doctors reveals how explanations for the onset of puerperal insanity were drawn from a broad set of moral, social and environmental frameworks, rather than being bound to ideas that women as a whole were likely to be vulnerable to mental illness. The horror of this devastating disorder which upturned the household, turned gentle mothers into disruptive and dangerous mad women, was magnified by it occurring at a time when it was anticipated that women would be most happy in the fulfillment of their role as mothers.

Author: H. Marland
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 06/29/2004
Pages: 303
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.12lbs
Size: 8.76h x 5.78w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781403920386

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2005 pg. 1624

About the Author
HILARY MARLAND is Reader in History and Director of the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick. She is former editor of Social History of Medicine, and has published widely on midwifery, infant and maternal welfare, Nineteenth-Century medical practice, and alternative healing. She is currently working on a study of women's health and advice book literature in the Nineteenth-Century, the health of industrial workers and spa treatments.