Birth, Marriage and Sex in Eighteenth Century Wales. (360G-Wellcome-104885_Z_14_Z)

My proposed research will examine the social, cultural and medical history of childbirth in eighteenth-century Wales. My focus will be on the experience of reproduction and childbirth for unmarried mothers and on perinatal mortality, which I believe can be linked to a diverse typology of illegitimacies that carried varying levels of acceptability which influenced perinatal survival rates. My key goals will include investigation of the following: - What forms of courtship, cohabitation and p re-marital conjugal union were acceptable within communities? - Did rates of infant mortality vary for illegitimate births resulting from both acceptable and unacceptable sexual unions? - What childbirth customs and practices existed in eighteenth-century Wales and were they different for unmarried parturient women? - To what extent were there regional variations between in childbirth customs and practices, and in the role of midwives in England and Wales? - Did the largely rural nature of Welsh settlements affect accessibility to the services of a midwife and did this affect mortality rates? - What impact did medical advances in childbirth in the eighteenth century have on Wales?