Sophie Nicholls is a Lecturer in Early Modern History at St Hugh’s College, OxfordT
THE IDEA THAT VICTORIAN WOMEN were advised to “sit up and cough” after sex as a method of contraception is one of the more entertaining anecdotes in Jessica Cox’s otherwise sobering book. Readers will not be surprised to find that the experience of pregnancy and childbirth in nineteenth-century Britain was no picnic.
Indeed, the organisation of this book reflects the grim nature of its subject matter: each chapter is arranged around themes, which include (in)fertility, maternal mortality, abortion and infanticide. Women who experienced domestic abuse, marital rape and serial unwanted pregnancies fill the pages.
It is encouraging, however, even amid these gloomy subjects, to find that most things have changed for the better. The medicalisation of childbirth in the last century has had one enormous benefit: more women, and their babies, survive.
Advice manuals, which make up a large portion of
