The Origins of Medicalization: The Basis of Russian Social Policy in the Field of Reproductive Health (1760–1860)

Abstract

Natalya L. Pushkareva – Grand PhD (History), Professor of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation. Email: pushkarev@mail.ru

Natalia A. Mitsyuk – Grand PhD (History), Associate Professor, of the Smolensk State Medical University, Russian Federation. Email: mitsyuk.natalia@gmail.com

DOI: 10.17323/727-0634-2017-15-4-515-530

This article examines the processes behind the transition from traditional to scientific obstetrics in Russia during Late Modern period. Our aim in doing this is to analyse the processes of medicalization and pathologization of birth within medical discourse. To do this we examine Russian obstetric literature since the 1760s to the middle of the nineteenth century. The emergence of scientific obstetrics in Russia in the second half of the eighteenth century was partly due to the development of scientific medicine and the opening of the first educational institutions for 'povituchi'. One barrier to the dissemination of scientific obstetrics came in the form of gender stereotypes claiming it was unacceptable for men to examine the female body. Doctors, seeking to prove their own authority and superiority over traditional obstetrics, wrote about the special political importance of this business. The authority of the science of obstetrics was established through the development of the doctrine of operative obstetrics. Obstetric operations, the use of new technological instruments and gynecological operations became advantages of clinical physicians. Doctors asserted their social control over the sphere of procreation through the pathologization of birth. Clinical space was transformed into the area of experimentation on the female body, which came to be regarded as an object of observation. Women went from being active participants, subjects of labour to becoming passive objects of medical manipulations. The process of medicalization with regards female reproductive health also included obstetric science claiming control over the whole life of the woman: from puberty to pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal restoration. The average 'correct' model was formed as well as 'the wrong childbirth'. Any deviations from these 'norms' became viewed as cause for medical intervention.