Making Babies in Early Modern England

Leah Astbury's Making Babies in Early Modern England examines generation as a household-centered process across conception, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.

Drawing on manuscript recipe books, diaries, letters, and printed medical and conduct literature, the book foregrounds both men’s and women’s roles and highlights the material culture and emotional stakes of making babies.

Astbury challenges narratives that childbirth was an exclusively female domain by showing men’s involvement in provisioning, seeking practitioners, and shaping ideals of legitimacy and reputation.

The book also complicates assumptions about ‘natural’ childbirth and recovery by revealing mismatches between medical prescriptions and lived experiences.

Scholarly yet accessible, it contributes to the history of the family, gender, and early modern medicine.