In this history of childbirth and contraception in Mexico, Nora E. Jaffary chronicles colonial and nineteenth-century beliefs and practices surrounding conception, pregnancy and its prevention, and birth. Tracking Mexico's transition from colony to nation, Jaffary demonstrates the central role of reproduction in ideas about female sexuality and virtue, the development of modern Mexico, and the growth of modern medicine in the Latin American context.The...

By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, Klepp demonstrates that many American women--rural and urban, free and enslaved--began to radically redefine motherhood during the Age of Revolution as they asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities.