Epidemics, migration and territorial losses led to population decline in early nineteenth-century Turkey. In response, Ottoman elites began a programme of population growth. Balsoy uses previously untapped archival sources to examine these developments, arguing that these changes caused reproduction to become a political experience.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Besi??m Ömer and Writing the History of Midwifery and Childbirth; Chapter 2 The Transformation of Midwifery; Chapter 3 Abortion, Power and Agency; Chapter 4 Pregnancy as a Site of Medical Intervention; Chapter 5 Infertility as a Public Problem; conclusion Conclusion: Gendering Nineteenthcentury Ottoman History;