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

MODERN CURRICULA
The curricula that modern midwifery schools created and instituted were based on Western
scientific principles of childbirth in which the mother’s body was treated as a reproductive
machine, and the pregnant body as ill or diseased. This critique of modern medicine creating a
vision of the pregnant body as abnormal, diseased, a body to be controlled and manipulated, has
been applied to modern obstetrics in the West by such scholars as Emily Martin and Sarah
Franklin. 571 It is clear that such beliefs were adopted in midwifery school curricula in China,
though it is unclear whether or how much the modern midwives altered their daily practices
when treating their pregnant and parturient patients. Judging from some of the midwifery school
yearbooks discussed above that contain writings by their students, the new midwives seem to
have wholeheartedly adopted modern medical beliefs. These publications are necessarily
polemical, as they are, after all, the products of modern midwifery schools.
The six-month advanced maternity course offered by the First National Midwifery
School illustrates the focus on the scientific nature of childbirth. The 136 hours of coursework
included anatomy and physiology of female reproductive organs, embryology, abnormal labors,
hemorrhage, puerperal sepsis, pregnancy toxemia and eclampsia, heart disease, tuberculosis, the
use of instruments, labor induction, caesarean section, reconstructive operations, use of drugs
during pregnancy and labor, extrauterine pregnancy, twins and “monsters,” antenatal care,
urinalysis, and diseases of the newborn. A class in Chinese “character” was also included.
Topics of the six-month basic midwife course included pelvic deformity, hemorrhage,
“fits” (possibly eclampsia?), swelling of legs and genitals, purulent genital discharge, abnormal
presentation, retained placenta, fever, and “white leg” (perhaps a blood clot?). The books used
571 Franklin, "Postmodern Procreation," Martin, The Woman in the Body.
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