New mothers face a barrage of confounding decisions during the life-cycle of early motherhood which includes... Should they change their diet or mindset to conceive? Exercise while pregnant? Should they opt for a home birth or head for a hospital? Whatever they “choose,” they will be sure to find plenty of medical expertise from health practitioners to social media “influencers” telling them that they’re making a series of mistakes. As intersectional feminists with two small children each, Bethany L. Johnson and Margaret M. Quinlan draw from their own experiences as well as stories from a range of caretakers throughout. You’re Doing it Wrong! investigates the storied history of mothering advice in the media, from the newspapers, magazines, doctors’ records and personal papers of the nineteenth-century to today’s websites, Facebook groups, and Instagram feeds. Johnson and Quinlan find surprising parallels between today’s mothering experts and their Victorian counterparts, but they also explore how social media has placed unprecedented pressures on new mothers, even while it may function as social support for some. They further examine the contentious construction of prenatal and baby care expertise itself, as individuals such as everyone from medical professionals to experienced moms have competed to have their expertise acknowledged in the public sphere. Exploring potential health crises from infertility treatments to “better babies” milestones, You’re Doing it Wrong! provides a provocative look at historical and contemporary medical expertise during conception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and infant care stages.
Bethany L. Johnson is an instructor in history and an associate member to the graduate faculty and research affiliate faculty in the department of communication studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Margaret M. Quinlan is a professor of communication studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part I Conception and (In)fertility
1 On Preconception, the Beginning of the Life Cycle of Early Motherhood 23
2 A State of Mind? Fertility Treatment(s) and Expertise 32
Part II Pregnancy and Birth
3 Red Underwear, Genes, and Monstrosity: Pregnancy and Social Media Surveillance 57
4 "You Women Will Have to Fight for It": Twilight Sleep and Transactional Childbirth Expertise in Twentieth-Century America 80
Part III The Postpartum Period: The "Fourth Trimester"
5 "One of the Most Curious Charities in the World": Infant Incubation as Sideshow and/or Medical Specialty 101
6 Not Just Baby Blues: Historical Realities and Social Media Accounts of Postpartum Care Today 123
Part IV Infant Loss and Early Childhood
7 Memento Mori in the Victorian Era and on Social Media: The "Right" (Way) to Grieve 149
8 "Better Babies": Early Twentieth-Century Scientific Babyhood and Constructions of Twenty-First- Century Infancy on Instagram 172
