R. Woods – Fetal Health and Mortality in Historical Perspective

Автор: R. Woods
Название книги: Fetal Health and Mortality in Historical Perspective
Формат: PDF
Жанр: История медицины
Страницы: 313
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Considering its importance, the history of fetal health and mortality remains a neglected area. Medical historians have tended to focus on maternal mortality and professional conflicts between midwives rather than on the unborn, while among the social scientists demographers and epidemiologists have until recently devoted most of their attention to infants and children.

I have worked for many years on infant and child mortality, and the problems
surrounding their explanation, mainly in historical populations. This has been
done without particular reference to fetal health and mortality. I now appreciate
that such neglect was certainly a mistake. The circumstances that affect infants
and children after live births are closely associated with their experience in the
womb and at delivery. The extent of fetal wastage will have been considerable
and worthy of study in its own right. Today, in medically advanced countries
only four or five in every thousand viable fetuses are not live-born. In some
African countries the figure is believed to be between 40 and 60, about the same
level it probably was in early modern Europe. The stories of how the declines
occurred, their causes, the turning-points and phases of stability, these will all be
of interest. They are the subjects of this belated study.
I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the Wellcome Trust, which gave me a
research-leave award for three years, 2005–7. Without the Trust’s support this
study would not have been possible. I am also grateful to the Wellcome Library,
London, for allowing me to reproduce images from their collection. The Warden
and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford, elected me to a Visiting Fellowship for
Michaelmas Term 2005. A number of individuals have been particularly kind
in allowing me to use their data or they have been instrumental in shaping my
comparative approach to fetal health and mortality: Anne Løkke (Copenhagen),
Frans van Poppel (The Hague), Lucia Pozzi (Sassari, Sardinia), Graham Mooney
(Baltimore), Catherine Rollet (Versailles), and Diego Ramiro Fari˜nas (Madrid).
Many of these ideas were discussed during the workshop on ‘Fetal and Neonatal
Mortality: Historical Perspectives on the Borderline between Life and Death’
which was held at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Madrid, 10–11
June 2008. In Britain, Anne Crowther, Bill Gould, Clare Holdsworth, Paul
Williamson, Godfried Croenen, Chris Galley, Irvine Loudon, and Michael
Weindling have been generous with their time and comments. Members of
the University of Liverpool, Department of Geography Graphics Unit—Sandra
Mather, Suzanne Yee, and Ian Qualtrough—have been especially helpful, in
preparing the diagrams and illustrations. Finally, Alison, Rachel, and Gavin have
contributed more than they can ever know.