Livia Arndal Woods The film adaptation of E.L. James Fifty Shades Freed was released this week.
Tag: pregnancy
Monstrous and Mindful Births: Policing the Pregnant Imagination
Image retrieved from WikiMedia Commons. Aristotle’s Master-Piece, or The Secrets of Generation, was first published in 1684 and quickly became the most popular medical book about “sex and babies” from its publication through the 19th century (Fissell 114). The frontispiece in many editions of this text depicts a black infant and woman covered in hair,…
“Peeing on this ad may change your life”
Credit: IKEA Sweden and Åkestam Holst By Livia Arndal Woods The January 13, 2018 episode of NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me” just drew my attention to an interesting pop culture tidbit. It turns out that the Swedish women’s magazine Amelia ran an advertisement for a discount on an IKEA crib in which the price is…
The Myth of Miscarriage: An Early Modern Legacy
If a medical school student or resident looked up “miscarriage” in the index of Blueprints Obstetrics & Gynecology (2013), they would be directed to “spontaneous abortion.” Denoting a pregnancy that ends before 20 weeks, spontaneous abortion occurs in 15% to 25% of all pregnancies, and this “number may be even higher because losses that occur…
Back to Obstetrics: Beyond Normal and Problem Pregnancies
In the image that accompanies the title page of Aristotle’s Compleat and Experience’d Midwife (1700), the birthing chamber is depicted as a room full of lively, fleshed-out bodies, warm and inviting from the fireplace to the small animal sleeping in front of it. The baby is not pictured at all; the experienced midwives gather around…