![]() ![]() This revelation forced political attention on the actual condition of the Empire’s citizens. Ann Oakley argues that the Boer War 1899–1902 was a critical moment in the history of antenatal care by revealing what appeared to be a shockingly low standard of health among the male population recruited to fight in that war. 1 It was not the first time that the experience of war had encouraged concern with maternal and infant welfare. Women incorporated the dominant discourses of the period, namely those around war, into their accounts.ĭuring the Second World War efforts to increase Britain’s population resulted in renewed attention being paid to maternal health. social’ binary, but reflect the wider cultural context in which women gave birth. It demonstrates that they do not simply conform to the ‘medical vs. In doing so, the article reveals the complexity of women’s narratives. It will explore how the military-maternity analogy sheds light on women’s experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in Britain during the Second World War, whilst also considering maternity within women’s wider role as ‘domestic soldiers’, contributing to the war effort through their traditional work as housewives and mothers. The aim of this article is to examine the interplay between narratives of birth and narratives of war in the accounts of maternity from women of the wartime generation. However, in return, women were also expected to contribute to the war effort through motherhood, and this reflected wider cultural ideas in the North Atlantic world in the first half of the twentieth century which equated maternity with military service. ![]() Infant and maternal mortality rates continued to fall, new drugs became available, and efforts were made to improve the health of mothers and babies through the provision of subsidised milk and other foodstuffs. Women in Second World War Britain benefitted from measures to improve maternal and child health. ![]()
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