Shannon Withycombe PhD is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, where she primarily teaches history of medicine, gender, and reproduction. Her first book, Lost: Miscarriage in Nineteenth-Century America was published in 2018, and she has published on topics in history of reproduction for both academic and popular audiences. Her current work investigates the development of prenatal care in the early twentieth century and the racial politics of the "science" supporting this new medical field. 

Dr. Withycombe will explore the development of prenatal health care as a public health concern, a medical specialty, and a cause for women activists between 1910 and 1930. Examining both the infant mortality studies conducted at this time in various communities and the prenatal care work they helped to inform, she will reveal the role of eugenics and the "science" of racial differences promoted by physicians and health departments at the time. The legacies of these racial politics continue to shape maternal health today as Black women die from pregnancy-related causes three times more likely than white women. These racial disparities in 2023 demonstrate that the early-twentieth-century constructions of maternity, medicine, and biology continue to shape public health programs and individual clinical encounters in ways that harm people of color.  

DATE:  TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2023 from 12:00 – 1:00 PM (Mountain Time)

Zoom access:

https://hsc-unm.zoom.us/j/94046769333

Meeting ID: 940 4676 9333

Passcode: 061308