We’re delighted to announce that we’ve recently published a collection of memories of childbirth, as part of a public engagement project. This is entitled ‘Hiding in the Pub to Cutting the Cord? Fatherhood and Childbirth in Britain, from the 1950s to the Present’, and is currently being undertaken at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick.
Please visit http://go.warwick.ac.uk/chmfatherhood to learn more about the project – click on the ‘Memories’ tab to read about childbirth stories over the past decades. We’re also still looking for participants – parents of any age can fill in a quick questionnaire about their experiences of childbirth on the above site.
This project aims to examine the apparently rapid and dramatic transformation in men’s roles in childbirth since the mid-twentieth century, to dispel myths around fatherhood in history, and to engage the public in debates about family life. The project also includes a publication and exhibition of fathers’ poetry produced in a series of workshops with local publisher Nine Arches Press, working with the theatre company Babakas on a piece called ‘Our Fathers’ to be performed at the Warwick Arts Centre in June, and a conference on parenting for policy-makers, practitioners and researchers in September.
Mark Carrigan 