Linda Bryder – författare

Tuberculosis was perceived for the first time in the early twentieth century as a major problem warranting state involvement in a national campaign for its eradication. This book examines the rise of the anti-tuberculosis movement in Britain, and the development of a new public health service and medical specialism, discussing why the campaign took the particular form it did. The importance of the study lies in its conception of medical history not as a series of scientific discoveries and technological developments, but as an integral part of a broader social and political scene. The patient, often neglected in medical history, is given close attention in an attempt to understand how the disease has been viewed during this century, and the impact it has had on society. Below the Magic Mountain shows that medicine cannot be understood in isolation from the society of which it is a part.

The contributors to this collection look into the experiences of women in the Western world going through pregnancy and birth over the last hundred years.

The contributors to this collection look into the experiences of women in the Western world going through pregnancy and birth over the last hundred years.

Natural childbirth and rooming in; artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation; sterilisation and abortion: women’s health and reproduction went through a revolution in the twentieth century as scientific advances confronted ethical and political dilemmas. In New Zealand, the major site for this revolution was National Women’s Hospital. Established in Auckland in 1946, with a purpose-built building that opened in 1964, National Women’s was the home of medical breakthroughs by Sir William (Bill) Liley and Sir Graham (Mont) Liggins; of the Lawson quintuplets and the ‘glamorous gynaecologists’; and of scandals surrounding the so-called ‘unfortunate experiment’ and the neonatal chest physiotherapy inquiry. In this major history, Linda Bryder traces the rise and fall of National Women’s over half a century in order to tell a wider story of reproductive health. She uses the varying perspectives of doctors, nurses, midwives, consumer groups and patients to show how together their dialogue shaped the nature of motherhood and women’s health in twentieth-century New Zealand.

‘In 2012, following his investigation of the deaths of two babies in childbirth at Waikato Hospital, Hamilton coroner Gordon Matenga asked, ‘Does New Zealand have the safe, world-leading system the Government says we do, or are we losing babies because the balance has swung too far towards the idea that because childbirth is natural, then the philosophy of “non-intervention” is best?’ ‘Babies’ deaths reignite maternity row’, the New Zealand Herald announced.’— from the introduction by Linda BryderIs New Zealand ‘the best country to give birth’? Historian of medicine Linda Bryder explores how New Zealand developed a unique approach to the role of midwives in childbirth in the 1990s, and analyses the consequences of that change for mothers and babies.The Best Country to Give Birth? traces the genesis of the 1990 Nurses Amendment Act, which allowed midwives to practise alone in the community, back to the homebirth movement of the 1970s, and explores the aftermath of the Act including the withdrawal of GPs from maternity care. In investigating the consequences of the reforms, it uncovers repeated criticism of services – and what were deemed preventable deaths – from coroners, commissioners for health and disability, other health professionals including some midwives, academic researchers, and parents and families.How and why does maternity care in Aotearoa differ from other countries? How has it shaped the equitable care of our mothers and babies? Why have critical reports had so little impact? This is a major historical account of an issue at the heart of our maternity care.

Forthcoming.