Fighting Infectious Disease: Evidence from Sweden 1870–1940

Infant mortality in mid‐19th century Amsterdam: Religion, social class, and space

“…The role of obstetricians increased in importance as education around childbirth improved through the second half of the 19th century; they began being more involved on a regular basis—not just for complicated births (Van Lieburg & Marland, ). Although information on individual use of health care is unavailable, the data suggest that living further away from the most obvious health care, the nearest midwife, increased infant mortality risks, which supports findings from studies on aggregate‐level data (Edvinsson et al, ; Lazuka et al, ) and micro‐level data (Reid, , 2017).…”

“…Infant mortality is 39% higher where the fresh canal water quality is worst (especially in the east of the city) unlike in the lower lying areas (mainly in the west) with the worst quality groundwater. With regard to health care, particularly the role of midwives is found to be important (Edvinsson, Garðarsdóttir, & Thorvaldsen, ; Lazuka, Quaranta, & Bengtsson, ; Reid, , ). In our analysis, indeed the distance to the nearest midwife matters, however, only living the furthest away from the nearest midwife increases infant mortality risk significantly, at 20%.…”

The long-term health benefits of receiving treatment from qualified midwives at birth

“…This stays in contrast to the early twentieth-century England, where the choice of birth attendants was fully determined by wealth of the family (Reid 2012). Several micro-studies for Sweden, for which the data is available far back in time, have shown that infant mortality decreased substantially beginning from the time the educated public midwives arrived at the parishes (Andersson, Högberg and Bergström 2000;Lazuka, Quaranta, and Bengtsson 2016). The fewer studies that have looked at the impact of midwives on the newborn children and their mothers in other historical and contemporary settings have also found decreases in death rates (Reid 2012;Carlo et al 2010;Loudon 1992Loudon , 2000.…”

Unequal lands: Soil type, nutrition, and child mortality in southern Sweden, 1850-1914

“…Several factors affecting exposure to such diseases in the period considered in this study varied across regions; for example, access to safe water and sanitation, housing conditions, population density, public health implementations, poor relief, and breast-feeding practices (Brändström 1984;Brändström, Edvinsson, and Rogers 2002;Claësson 2009;Floud et al 2011;Kintner 1985;Lazuka, Quaranta, and Bengtsson 2016;Woods, Watterson, and Woodward 1988). The spread of contagious diseases may also have been influenced by characteristics of the environment such as topography and accessibility through communication networks, which may determine the interaction patterns between people.…”