“Bound to Be a Troublesome Time”: Canadian Perceptions of Pregnancy, Parturition, and Pain, c. 1867–1930

Abstract

The introduction, acceptance, and growing popularity of obstetric anaesthesia in Canada went hand in hand with changing conceptualisations of both pregnancy and birth. By the turn of the twentieth century, labour and delivery were overwhelmingly seen as pathological states, increasingly requiring medical management. Discussions surrounding the role of “birth pangs” or labour pain in the birthing process, as both a diagnostic tool and as a feature of labour requiring increasing attention, treatment, and control at the hands of overwhelmingly male physicians, were at the heart of this shift. This chapter offers an analysis of both professional and popular medical discourses with the aim of situating first-person narratives within the broader contexts of these changes in order to highlight Canadian perceptions of pregnancy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.