Journal of Medical Biography > Volume 16, Number 3 > Pp. 134-143

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Physicians

Doctor Gunning S Bedford (1806–70) and the search for safe obstetric care, 1833–70

Joseph G Ryan  

Correspondence: Reverend Joseph G Ryan, St. Thomas Monastery, 800 E. Lancaster Avenue, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085-1687 USA (email: Joseph.Ryan{at}Villanova.edu)

In 1800 many European doctors were practitioners of the new midwifery, which improved the safety of childbirth for mothers and their infants. This study explores the role of Dr Gunning S Bedford Jr as an obstetric innovator who promoted the new midwifery in the USA from 1833 to 1870. Two strands of ideas converge to shape Bedford's obstetric instruction. First, Bedford's Catholic faith forbade the destruction of a living child to resolve a difficult birth. Catholic believers and the hierarchy admired Bedford for his care of indigent patients and his opposition to abortion. Second, Bedford's practice of the new midwifery allowed him to challenge the existing standard of care among practitioners. As an educator, through anatomical instruction and clinical training, he provided medical students with the skills necessary to resolve deliveries safely. Thus, he advocated the exclusion of untrained practitioners and midwives from the birth room. Bedford also promoted new forms of intervention, such as the caesarean operation, that would improve the safety of obstetrics in the future. Although his ideals of safe obstetrics were not fully realized in his lifetime, his instruction to students in the new midwifery raised the existing standard of care.

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