Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events

Stories

  • Article

A history of gestation outside the body

It’s been over 400 years since a Swiss alchemist theorised that foetuses could develop outside the womb. Claire Horn examines incubator technology past and present, and explores the possibilities recent prototypes might bring.

  • Article

Confusion, guilt, and the battle to breastfeed

Most new mums are told that breast is best. But breastfeeding doesn’t always come as easily or naturally as you might imagine.

  • Book extract

Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs

In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.

  • Article

Birth, babies and boxes of memories

With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.

All stories (5)

Images

  • Two mothers with crying babies and one in a walking frame; comparing the human infant's helplessness with the self-sufficiency of newborn animals. Engraving by P. Galle, c. 1563.
  • Two mothers with crying babies and one in a walking frame; comparing the human infant's helplessness with the self-sufficiency of newborn animals. Engraving by P. Galle, c. 1563.
  • She has your feet non - and large European ears!.
  • A woman lying down breast-feeding her baby. Etching by F. Bartolozzi after G.F. Barbieri, il Guercino.
  • A woman lying down breast-feeding her baby. Etching by F. Bartolozzi after G.F. Barbieri, il Guercino.
  • Observatio anatom.-medica singularis mulieris cuiusdam calend. Januarii A*1 M.DCXLIV. tres filios naturalis magnitudinis viventes enixae. Puerpera vero retentis secundinis, extremum quasi halitum spirabat...foeliciter evasit / [Michael Rupert Besler].
  • Childbirth, midwifery and care of the new born infant. Lithograph by G. Lopéz (?) after Fray B. de Sahagún.
  • A child receiving its first bath, the mother is in bed recovering and being given food. Pen drawing.
  • An essay on the diseases most fatal to infants. To which are added rules to be observed in the nursing of children: with a particular view to those who are brought up by hand ... / [George Armstrong].
  • A new-born baby about to receive its first bath. Wood engraving.
All images (127)

Catalogue

All works (1.3K)