Obstetrics and Revolution

Discover the eleventh session of the 2025–2026 seminar series "Crossed Perspectives on Early Childhood": "Obstetrics and Revolution: The Transformation of the Art of Childbirth in Paris (1770–1810) ".

The seminar will be held in French.

The seminar approaches early childhood as a social, historical, and cultural construct. Knowledge and theories relating to conception, birth, and child development are analysed in terms of the child’s interactions with their surroundings and according to gender norms. The seminar also explores the boundaries of this age category and its temporality, according to medical, international, anthropological, and historical standards.

The revolutionary reforms served as a fundamental catalyst in the transition from the “art of childbirth” to “obstetric science.” Revolutionary health policies actively promoted a scientific, instrumental, surgical, and male-dominated form of obstetrics, based on mechanical principles and the geometric measurement of the body, and championed by a new generation of obstetric surgeons. The reform of medical education (1794), the creation of the Hospice de la Maternité (1796), and the rise of surgical procedures bear witness to this profound disciplinary transformation. This modernization generated tensions: between scientific ambition and medical ethics, between technical progress and the instrumentalization of women’s bodies. In fact, the Revolution profoundly redefined the relationships between science, politics, and society, reshaping the contours of a discipline at the crossroads of gender dynamics, medical power, and the demographic challenges of post-revolutionary France.

• Elena Danieli: Historian of Science (Paris Cité University–University of Bologna)
• Discussant: Nathalie sage Pranchère: Historian, CNRS