Stokes P R
Soc Hist Med. 2000 Dec;13(3):359-80. doi: 10.1093/shm/13.3.359.
This article shows how the very real risks of reproduction were culturally constituted by expectant mothers and physicians in Germany following the first World War. Both saw a strong potential for maternal and fetal death and injury. However, expectant mothers and physicians differed in the extent to which they regarded risk as contingent or inherent. Most physicians believed that pregnancy and childbirth first became dangerous in conjunction with a wide variety of other ailments, including complications specific to pregnancy. This view of pathology held a promise of prevention or at least treatment. Physicians further participated in inventing new, modern understandings of pathology, which also encompassed factory work as a reproductive hazard. Expectant mothers, in contrast, viewed pregnancy and childbirth as inherently dangerous based on their experiences and those of the women they knew, which not infrequently involved illness, disability, or close encounters with death. Many of them also held the ancient idea that a woman could harm the foetus with her imagination. As a result, though women varied in their beliefs (influenced by class, education, region, and religion), as a group they feared childbirth. Paradoxically, competition among lay and medical ideas gave women new options while also gradually enhancing medical authority.
本文展示了第一次世界大战后，德国的准妈妈和医生如何在文化层面构建生育所面临的切实风险。双方都意识到母婴死亡和受伤的巨大可能性。然而，准妈妈和医生在将风险视为偶然还是内在因素这一点上存在差异。大多数医生认为，怀孕和分娩首先会因各种其他疾病（包括特定的妊娠并发症）而变得危险。这种病理学观点带来了预防甚至治疗的希望。医生们还进一步参与创造了对病理学的全新现代理解，其中也将工厂工作视为一种生殖危害。相比之下，准妈妈们基于自身经历以及她们认识的女性的经历（这些经历常常涉及疾病、残疾或与死亡擦肩而过），认为怀孕和分娩本质上就是危险的。她们中的许多人还持有古老的观念，即女性的想象会伤害胎儿。因此，尽管女性的信仰因阶级、教育程度、地区和宗教而有所不同，但作为一个群体，她们害怕分娩。矛盾的是，外行观念与医学观念之间的竞争给了女性新的选择，同时也逐渐增强了医学权威。
