You and Your Baby (home, husband, and doctor): maternal responsibility in the British Medical Association booklet (1957--1987)

Errington, Kate (2024) You and Your Baby (home, husband, and doctor): maternal responsibility in the British Medical Association booklet (1957--1987). Medical Humanities , ISSN 1473-4265.

Abstract

You and Your Baby was a pregnancy advice booklet, produced by the British Medical Association (BMA) from 1957-1987. This booklet was provided to expectant mothers in the UK, free of charge, and offered authoritative information on pregnancy, childbirth and caring for infants. Reprinted each year, You and Your Baby captured contemporary maternity policy and advice. But, in addition to the typical information that you might expect about mother and baby health, You and Your Baby advised readers on matters such as maintaining their appearance, marital relations, and domestic duties. In this way, it advocated a specific vision of motherhood, with responsibilities to the home and husband. Further to these duties, this article will focus on the balance of responsibilities between pregnant women and their doctors, and how attitudes to trust and authority developed over time. The BMA publication repeatedly warned readers against listening to “old wives’ tales”, instead emphasising the importance of accepting (and not questioning) professional medical guidance. Following the thalidomide scandal, however, women were made partially responsible for doctors' professional integrity; women were advised to avoid asking their doctors to prescribe medication that may later prove to be harmful, shifting the responsibility from the healthcare practitioner to the mother. This created an uncomfortable dissonance between the publication’s attempts to establish and reinforce medical authority, and yet shift professional responsibility. The booklet series, therefore, posed women as responsible for their doctors, as well as their babies. In summary, this article presents a case study of the You and Your Baby BMA booklet, examining developing healthcare messaging around maternal behaviour and responsibility. It draws attention to supposed responsibilities to the home, husband, and doctor and how those responsibilities changed over thirty years.

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