Making Babies in Early Modern England

Astbury demonstrates how making babies was central to family life, status, gender and medicine in early modern England.

Leah Astbury (Author)

9781009602860, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 January 2026

268 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.548 kg

'There is a poignancy to Astbury's examination of the expectations of delivery and the pain, discomfort, disability and fatigue that often accompanied recovery. ... This engaging, meticulously researched account provides an invaluable study of the process.' Dannielle Shaw, Times Literary Supplement

Early modern English people were obsessed with making babies. In this fascinating new history, Leah Astbury traces this preoccupation through manuscript letters, diaries, recipe books and almanacs, revealing its centrality to family life. Information was plentiful in guides on the burgeoning fields of domestic conduct and midwifery, as well as in the many satirical ballads focused on sex, marriage and family. Astbury utilises this broad source base to explore all aspects of early modern childbearing, from conception to the months after delivery. She demonstrates that, while religious and cultural ideals dictated that women carry out all of this work, men were engaged in its practice through directing medical decisions. With the entire household including servants, wetnurses and other unexpected actors included in the project, childbearing can be situated within the histories of gender, medicine, social status, family and record-keeping. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Introduction
1. Fertility, fruitfulness and anxious families
2. Pregnancy, record-keeping and respectability
3. Big bellies, imagining babies and cultures of display
4. Men, midwives and a place to give birth
5. 'Safe' delivery and recovering from birth
6. 'Ordering' Infants
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX]