History of Women's Health Conference

This conference encourages interdisciplinary work. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, obstetrics and gynecology (fertility, infertility, birth control methods, menopause), adolescence (health, cultural influences, body image, puberty, eating disorders), mental health topics, aging concerns, women's health as consumer health, the female as conveyed in popular culture, overall women's health, access to health care, minority health, nursing, midwifery, female healers, and more.

Jacqueline H. Wolf, PhD, professor of the history of medicine, Department of Social Medicine at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine will be our keynote speaker, presenting "Cutting Risk: Obstetricians' Evolving Views of Cesarean Sections, 1870-2010". She is the author of Deliver Me from Pain: Anesthesia and Birth in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) and Don't Kill Your Baby: Public Health and the Decline of Breastfeeding in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Ohio State University Press, 2001).

The History of Women's Health Conference began in 2006 as part of the Pennsylvania Hospital's celebration of co-founder Benjamin Franklin's tercentenary. Each year since, scholars from the humanities and health care professionals gather to discuss the past, present, and future state of women's health. The conference is jointly sponsored by the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department and the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Collection.

A full program can be found at www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/.