Maternal Responsibility and Traceable Loss: medicine and miscarriage in twentieth-century Australia |
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Authors: | Catherine Kevin |
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Affiliation: | School of History and International Relations, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia |
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Abstract: | This article historicises the meaning of miscarriage in twentieth century Australia. It identifies a number of crucial turning points in scientific interpretations of the causes and treatments of miscarriage that produced shifts in the communication of responsibility to women for their own pregnancy losses. It also describes the changes that a number of medical technologies, including pregnancy detection, foetal visualisation and assisted conception, have brought to bear on the pregnant and pre-pregnant body. These technologies proliferated a variety of forms of reproductive loss during a period in which women experienced enhanced prospects of conception, as well as foetal, infant and maternal survival. |
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