«How to have healthy children». Responses to the falling birth rate in Norway, c. 1900-1940
Metadata
Show full item recordAuthor
Blom, IdaEditorial
Universidad de Granada
Materia
Salud maternoinfantil Consultorios de lactantes Esterilización Noruega Mother health Infant health Health stations Sterilization Norway
Date
2008Referencia bibliográfica
Blom, Ida. «“How to have healthy children”. Responses to the falling birth rate in Norway, c. 1900-1940». Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam, 2008, Vol. 28, p. 151-174, https://raco.cat/index.php/Dynamis/article/view/118811.
Abstract
This paper focuses on initiatives to improve infant health, as they developed in
Norway especially during the interwar period. Falling birth rates were felt as a menace to the
survival of the nation and specific initiatives were taken to oppose it. But crises engendered
by the reduction in fertility strengthened opportunities for introducing policies to help the
fewer children born survive and grow up to become healthy citizens. Legislation supporting
mothers started in 1892 increased in the interwar years including economic features. Healthy
mother and baby stations and hygienic clinics, aimed at controlling births were developed
by voluntary organisations inspired from France and England respectively. A sterilization law
(1934) paralleled some German policies.