SALES SHEET

Born to a Changing World

Childbirth in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand

Alison Clarke
Emerging from diaries, letters and memoirs, the voices of this remarkable book tell a new story of life arriving amidst a turbulent world. Before the Plunket Society, before antibiotics, before safe Caesarean sections and registered midwives, nineteenth-century birthing practice in New Zealand was typically determined by culture, not nature or the state. Alison Clarke works from the heart of this practice, presenting a history balanced in its coverage of social and medical contexts. Connecting these contexts provides new insights into the same debates on childhood from infant feeding to maternity care that persist today. Tracing the experiences of Mori and Pkeh birth ways, this richly illustrated story remains centred throughout on birthing women, their babies and families: this is their history.

Author information
Dr Alison Clarke worked as a registered nurse for a number of years before becoming a historian, completing her PhD at the University of Otago in 2003. Currently employed part-time in the Hocken Collections, she works as a freelance historian. This is her third book in addition to a number of chapters in contributed works and articles in refereed journals.

RRP$39.99 240 x 170 mm 312 pages 114 b/w illustrations ISBN 9781927131428 Published November 2012

Key sales points

This is a history that has been waiting to be told for generations and will attract significant interest on publication Alisons use of narrative history stories from diaries, letters and memoirs ensures this is an accessible, lively and often deeply moving work People moving through pregnancy and birth, especially the accompanying professions, are always interested in the culture and history of their experience lots of opportunities to exploit our NZPB marketing contacts Genealogy is a huge market and this work will be of interest both for its subject matter but also its historical method

Alison Clarke

Distributor: HarperCollins, P O Box 1, Shortland Street, Auckland P O Box 12474, Wellington 6144 Phone: 04 473 8128 Email: info@bwb.co.nz www.bwb.co.nz Contact: customerservices@harpercollins.co.nz Sales Manager: matthew.simpson@harpercollins.co.nz

Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Epilogue Appendix Court cases Abbreviations List of Illustrations Endnotes Bibliography Index Open Air and the Whare Khanga: Mori Birth Ways Lying In: Pkeh Birth Ways Destitute and Ailing: Giving Birth in Hospital What Beautiful Children These Are!: Clothing the Baby From Wet Nursing to Condensed Milk: Changes in Infant Feeding Christening, Churching and Circumcision: The Religious Rituals of Childbirth The Angel of Death Was Waiting for Them: Maternal Illness and Death She Has No Baby Now to Call Her Mother: Infant Death

Images, from top: Mataura Ensign, 22 August 1899, Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand; Otago Witness, 25 June 1896; Chemist and Druggist, 2 November 1889, W. A. Baylis the Chemist Limited records, 84-126, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hkena, University of Otago