Childbirth
Reproduction and childbirth would have affected women of different classes very differently across the Victorian Era. With different accesses to care, length of the lying-in period (a period of seclusion for the mother after giving birth), and male regulation over women’s bodies. The "new obstetrics" movement called for innovation in anatomy knowledge and midwifery techniques in medical schools that were taught to mostly male students.
Middle and Upper-Class Women and Man Midwifery
One innovation that occurred in the century before and carried on into the Victorian Era was attempts to make the field of midwifery more scientific by the man midwife. The position of midwife gave women medical practitioners power and control over womanhood and women’s reproductive medical practices. However, in the 18th century, the view that men were rational and women were irrational meant that men should be given authority over women's medicine in the developing field of obstetrics. While male midwives usually attended to middle and upper-class women, a male midwife could be called in severe cases for lower-class women and were seen as more rational.
However, women midwives still attended to most of the births during the 19th century.
Poor Women and Workhouse Births
In addition to the institutional development of hospitals, the institution of the workhouse was greatly affected during the 19th century, especially by the New Poor Law of 1834. This was also a period when morality was tied to poverty, especially unwed mothers and new regulations on bastardy that directly targeted poor women. While most women continued to give birth at home, workhouses, offered medical care and support to women, often in poor conditions, and then enforced physical labor. Sometimes, a woman would go before and after giving birth and leave, or during the last few months of her pregnancy.
Sources Used:
Williams, Samantha. 2018. Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850 Pregnancy, the Poor Law and Provision. 1st ed. 2018. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73320-3.
Mooney, Graham. “Diagnostic Spaces: Workhouse, Hospital, and Home in Mid-Victorian London.” Social Science History 33, no. 3 (2009): 357–90.
Newman, Charlotte. “To Punish or Protect: The New Poor Law and the English Workhouse.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 18, no. 1 (2014): 122–45.