BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

uilding efforts after the fall of the Qing dynasty. They also show the increased importance of
women in China’s rebuilding process as women started to enter the medical and public health
fields. Furthermore, local and national Republican and Guomindang governments began to
regulate midwives as early as 1913. Legitimate midwives, those who had received some formal
medical training, were licensed, while those engaged in deviant practices or behaviors were
proscribed.
Modern childbirth was linked with scientific medicine, and it was the foundation on
which to build a strong nation. However, the shift to modern medicine was gradual, just as it
was in the United States and Europe, and in China it was never complete. Even today, hospitals
in China have both modern (xiyao) and traditional Chinese (zhongyao) medical departments.
Childbirth is one of the areas that has been almost thoroughly medicalized, as we can see in the
high rates of caesarean sections in urban China today. Only the poorest women today give birth
in their homes, while the majority give birth in hospitals or local clinics, though usually without
medical anesthesia (traditional Chinese anesthesia, such as acupuncture, is sometimes used).
Compared with the hegemony of scientific medicine in the United States today, we see a much
greater acceptance of alternative forms of medicine in China.
Throughout this work, there are references to the sterility, cleanliness, and order of the
modern birth environment, as opposed to the disorder and disarray of the untrained jieshengpo.
The sterile birth environment that the zhuchanshi advocated – white sheets and towels, clean
hands, and sterilized equipment – certainly reduced maternal and infant mortality. Their
starched white uniforms and bobbed hair, however, seem superfluous. Or were they? It is much
easier to tell whether or not a white garment is dirty, in contrast with the drab fabrics worn by the
jieshengpo and, indeed, most of the population. Furthermore, short hair is more easily kept out
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