Modern Maternities: Medical Advice about Breastfeeding in Colonial Calcutta

Modern Maternities: Medical Advice about Breastfeeding in Colonial Calcutta explores rare textual and visual materials on medical opinions about breastfeeding by memsahibs, dais, and bhadramahila in nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial Calcutta. It offers critical insights into social histories of medicine, motherhood, and childcare, and is intended for scholars and researchers from modern Indian history, global history, health history, medical anthropology, gender studies, and South Asian studies.

Format: Hardback
Length: 274 pages
Publication date: 27 July 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Modern Maternities: Medical Advice about Breastfeeding in Colonial Calcutta delves into a wealth of rare textual and visual materials, shedding light on medical opinions about breastfeeding during the colonial era in Calcutta. Through the analysis of archival resources, the author explores a range of themes, including modernity, maternity, medicine, intersections of race, gender, class, caste, community, and age in diet, artificial foods versus wet nursing, cleanliness,corporeality, and culture, clean midwifery versus dirty midwifery, customary breastfeeding practices, child-mothers and childcare, breastfeeding, motherhood, and modern clocks. The book offers critical insights into the social histories of medicine, motherhood, and childcare in nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial Calcutta. It is designed to appeal to a wide audience, particularly scholars and researchers interested in the interdisciplinary study of childrearing advice, with a focus on regional, national, and global resonances.

In particular, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in modern Indian history, global history, health history, medical anthropology, gender studies, and South Asian studies. The rich content and interdisciplinary approach make it a valuable resource for understanding the complex dynamics of motherhood, healthcare, and social change in colonial India.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032066196