Exploring the development of maternal anxiety through advice to mothers (291)
Today, there is a significant increase in women experiencing anxiety in the postnatal period. One factor attributed to this rise is the plethora of advice leaving new mothers feeling confused and overwhelmed. National Baby Week, first held in Great Britain in 1917, positioned parenting, pregnancy and birth as public discourses, producing a set of ‘dos and don’ts’ that shaped the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mother discourses that continue to influence women today.
This paper explores narratives of ideal motherhood found in medical literature and examines how this discourse has shaped ideals of motherhood from 1917 to 1939. We begin by investigating how National Baby Week started as a social movement to reduce child mortality but by 1939 mothers were subject to medical and scientific experts that had encroached on all aspects of motherhood including child rearing, family health and domestic duties.
The scale of the twentieth-century historical period illustrates the rapid increase in policing mothers through strict and prescriptive advice that risks undermining their confidence. We ask whether the medicalisation of motherhood has contributed to the rise in maternal anxiety today as women strive to meet the ideals of good motherhood.