TOPICS: Premature birth Naissance prématurée
- Some critical studiesQuelques études critiques:
- Bates, A., Emblematic Monsters: unnatural conceptions and deformed births in Early Modern Europe, Amsterdam, 2005.
- Berriot-Salvadore, E., Un Corps, un destin. La femme dans la médecine de la Renaissance, Paris, 1993.
- Blumenfeld-Kosinski, R., Not of Woman Born. Representations of caesarean birth in Medieval and Renaissance culture, Ithaca New York , 1990.
- Broomhall, S., Women's Medical Work in Early Modern France, Manchester and New York, 2004.
- Daston, L., and Park, K., Wonders and the Orders of Nature 1515-1750, New York, 1998.
- Gélis, J., La Sage-Femme ou le médecin. Une nouvelle conception de la vie , Paris, 1988.
- Gélis, J., L'Arbre et le fruit. La naissance dans l'occident moderne XVI e -XIX e siècle , Paris, 1984.
- Green, M., Women's Healthcare in the Medieval West : Texts and Contexts, Aldershot, 2002.
- King, H., Hippocrates' Woman. Reading the female body in Ancient Greece, London, 1998.
- Laurent, S., Naître au Moyen Age. De la conception à la naissance : la grossesse et l'accouchement, Paris, 1989.
- Marland, H. (ed.), The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern midwives in Europe, London, 1993.
- McTavish, L., Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France, Aldershot, 2005.
- Perkins, W., Midwifery and Medicine in Early Modern France: Louise Bourgeois, Exeter, 1996.
- Schleiner, W., Medical Ethics in the Renaissance, Washington D.C., 1995.
- Tucker, H., Pregnant Fictions : Childbirth and the Fairytale in Early Modern France, Detroit, 2003.
- Worth-Stylianou, V., Les Traités d'obstétrique en langue française au seuil de la modernité, Geneva, 2007.
- Louise Bourgeois
- Observations by the Queen’s midwife on births she presided (1609-1617-1626)Les observations de la sage-femme de la Reine sur les accouchements qu’elle a présidés (1609-1617-1626)
- Jacques Bury
- The Experiences of a Surgeon Skilled in Difficult Deliveries (1623)
Les expériences d’un chirurgien specialisé dans les accouchements difficiles (1623)
- Jean Liebault
- The author of several medical compilations records a number of remarkable births (1582)
L’auteur de plusieurs compilations médicales raconte quelques naissances remarquables (1582)
For most doctors in the period 1500-1700, the normal length of pregnancy is considered to vary between seven and eleven months (although Liebault cites the case of a woman apparently born at six months). In this, they are following classical authorities who believed that a baby born at seven months had more chance of survival than one born at eight months. Some writers ascribe this to Nature's preference for odd numbers (symbolising perfection), others refer to the astrological calendar, in which the negative influence of Saturn presides over the eighth month. In reality, practitioners usually did their best to stop premature births by means of injections, pessaries and fumigations, since they knew that a weak and under-developed baby had far less chance of survival. Louise Bourgeois cites several examples (episodes 3 and 16) of her interventions for this purpose.