You’re Doing it Wrong!: Mothering, Media, and Medical Expertise

New mothers face a barrage of confounding decisions during the life-cycle of early motherhood which is… Should they change their diet or mindset to conceive? Exercise while pregnant? Should they opt for a home birth or head for a hospital? Whatever they choose, they will be sure to find plenty of medical expertise from health practitioners to social media influencers telling them that they’re making a series of mistakes. As intersectional feminists with two small children each, Johnson and Quinlan draw from their own experiences as well as stories from a range of caretakers throughout.

You’re Doing it Wrong! investigates the storied history of mothering advice in the media, from the newspapers, magazines, doctors’ records and personal papers of the nineteenth-century to today’s websites. Facebook groups and Instagram feeds. Medical historian Bethany Johnson and Communication Studies scholar Margaret M. Quinlan find surprising parallels between today’s mothering experts and their Victorian counterparts, but they also explore how social media has placed unprecedented pressures on new mothers, even while it may function as social support for some. They further examine the contentious construction of prenatal and baby care expertise itself, as individuals such as everyone from medical professionals to experienced moms have competed to have their expertise acknowledged in the public sphere.

Exploring potential health crises from infertility treatments to better babies milestones, You’re Doing it Wrong! provides a provocative look at historical and contemporary medical expertise during conception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and infant care stages.