Beyond the Statistics: A Biographical Study of Martha Ballard and the Diary of an 18th Century Midwife
Abstract
Background. Historical studies of childbirth have largely relied on aggregate statistics and institutional archives, resulting in the marginalization of experiential knowledge and everyday practices of community-based midwives. Such approaches risk reducing complex care systems into depersonalized data, thereby overlooking how knowledge, authority, and maternal agency were constructed in practice. The diary of Martha Ballard offers a rare microhistorical account that captures the lived realities of maternal care in the eighteenth century.
Purpose. This study aims to examine how Ballard’s diary reflects patterns of midwifery practice, forms of maternal agency, and modes of knowledge production that challenge dominant institutional and statistical narratives of pre-modern medicine.
Method. This study employs a qualitative biographical research design, integrating microhistorical analysis with thematic coding of selected diary entries. Supporting historical sources are used to contextualize findings and enhance interpretive validity.
Results. The findings reveal that Ballard’s midwifery practice functioned as a structured and adaptive system of care grounded in experiential knowledge, relational trust, and sustained community engagement. Evidence indicates that midwifery operated effectively despite the absence of formal institutional frameworks. Furthermore, the diary demonstrates that midwives acted not only as healthcare providers but also as producers of knowledge and holders of social authority within their communities.
Conclusion. This study highlights the importance of incorporating narrative-based and experiential evidence into historical analysis. It argues that personal documents such as Ballard’s diary provide critical insights into alternative healthcare epistemologies, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of maternal care beyond institutional perspectives.
Full text article
References
Allaf, M. M. (2022). Cyanobacteria: Model Microorganisms and Beyond. Microorganisms, 10(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10040696
Amyot, D. (2022). Combining Goal modelling with Business Process modelling: Two Decades of Experience with the User Requirements Notation Standard. Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures, 17(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.18417/emisa.17.2
Angelico, C. (2022). Can we measure inflation expectations using Twitter? Journal of Econometrics, 228(2), 259–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2021.12.008
Bayer, A. E. (2022). Beware of fake ? ’s: The effect of massive neutrinos on the nonlinear evolution of cosmic structure. Physical Review D, 105(12). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.123510
Bergroth, C. (2022). A 24-hour population distribution dataset based on mobile phone data from Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. Scientific Data, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-01113-4
Bleakley, A. (2022). A content analysis of sports and energy drink advertising. Appetite, 174(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2022.106010
Bourlard, H. (2022). Autoencoders reloaded. Biological Cybernetics, 116(4), 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-022-00937-6
Buchta, D. A. (2022). Assimilation of wall-pressure measurements in high-speed flow over a cone. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 947(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2022.668
Diamond, P. R. (2022). Change in prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in the two years following trauma: A meta-analytic study. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2022.2066456
Duffy, G. (2022). Confounders mediate AI prediction of demographics in medical imaging. Npj Digital Medicine, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-022-00720-8
Eversberg, D. (2022). Bioeconomy as a societal transformation: Mentalities, conflicts and social practices. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 30(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09), 973–987. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.01.021
Fan, L. (2022). A self-regulatory perspective on the link between customer mistreatment and employees’ displaced workplace deviance: The buffering role of mindfulness. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 34(7), 2704–2725. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-07-2021-0875
Fang, Z. (2022). A comprehensive framework for detecting economic growth expenses under ecological economics principles in China. Sustainable Horizons, 4(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.horiz.2022.100035
Gentile, F. (2022). Artificial intelligence–enabled virtual screening of ultra-large chemical libraries with deep docking. Nature Protocols, 17(3), 672–697. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-021-00659-2
Gignac, F. (2022). Co-creating a local environmental epidemiology study: The case of citizen science for investigating air pollution and related health risks in Barcelona, Spain. Environmental Health A Global Access Science Source, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-021-00826-8
Haider, R. Z. (2022). Beyond the In-Practice CBC: The Research CBC Parameters-Driven Machine Learning Predictive Modeling for Early Differentiation among Leukemias. Diagnostics, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12010138
Harnois-Déraps, J. (2022). Cosmic shear beyond 2-point statistics: Accounting for galaxy intrinsic alignment with projected tidal fields. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 509(3), 3868–3888. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3222
Heidrich, K. N. (2022). Assessing progress in data reporting by tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations. Fish and Fisheries, 23(6), 1264–1281. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12687
Hindley, G. (2022). Charting the Landscape of Genetic Overlap Between Mental Disorders and Related Traits Beyond Genetic Correlation. American Journal of Psychiatry, 179(11), 833–843. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.21101051
Huang, Z. (2022). A 3-D Non-Stationary Model for beyond 5G and 6G Vehicle-to-Vehicle mmWave Massive MIMO Channels. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 23(7), 8260–8276. https://doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2021.3077076
Ishigaki, K. (2022). Beyond GWAS: from simple associations to functional insights. Seminars in Immunopathology, 44(1), 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00281-021-00894-5
Jones, S. (2022). Association between delays to patient admission from the emergency department and all-cause 30-day mortality. Emergency Medicine Journal, 39(3), 168–173. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2021-211572
Kabir, K. H. (2022). Application of the technology acceptance model to assess the use and preferences of ICTs among field-level extension officers in Bangladesh. Digital Geography and Society, 3(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2022.100027
Karmpadakis, I. (2022). A new crest height distribution for nonlinear and breaking waves in varying water depths. Ocean Engineering, 266(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112972
Kleinstern, G. (2022). Body mass index associated with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) progression in Olmsted County, Minnesota. Blood Cancer Journal, 12(4). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41408-022-00659-9
Laguë, A. (2022). Constraining ultralight axions with galaxy surveys. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2022(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2022/01/049
Luo, H. (2022). Beyond universal attack detection for continuous-variable quantum key distribution via deep learning. Physical Review A, 105(4). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.105.042411
Marcillo, P. (2022). A Systematic Literature Review of Learning-Based Traffic Accident Prediction Models Based on Heterogeneous Sources. Applied Sciences Switzerland, 12(9). https://doi.org/10.3390/app12094529
Melo, M. B. de. (2022). Beyond ANOVA and MANOVA for repeated measures: Advantages of generalized estimated equations and generalized linear mixed models and its use in neuroscience research. European Journal of Neuroscience, 56(12), 6089–6098. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15858
Papazafeiropoulos, A. (2022). Coverage Probability of Double-IRS Assisted Communication Systems. IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, 11(1), 96–100. https://doi.org/10.1109/LWC.2021.3121209
Parent, J. (2022). A randomized controlled trial of technology-enhanced behavioral parent training: Sustained parent skill use and child outcomes at follow-up. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 63(9), 992–1001. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13554
Philcox, O. H. E. (2022). BOSS DR12 full-shape cosmology:??cDM constraints from the large-scale galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum monopole. Physical Review D, 105(4). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.043517
Pronk, A. (2022). Applying the exposome concept to working life health: The EU EPHOR project. Environmental Epidemiology, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.1097/EE9.0000000000000185
Quaquebeke, N. V. (2022). Conducting organizational survey and experimental research online: From convenient to ambitious in study designs, recruiting, and data quality. Organizational Psychology Review, 12(3), 268–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/20413866221097571
Razavi, A. C. (2022). Coronary Artery Calcium for Risk Stratification of Sudden Cardiac Death: The Coronary Artery Calcium Consortium. Jacc Cardiovascular Imaging, 15(7), 1259–1270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcmg.2022.02.011
Sanchis-Segura, C. (2022). Beyond “sex prediction”: Estimating and interpreting multivariate sex differences and similarities in the brain. Neuroimage, 257(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119343
Savage, A. E. (2022). Cultivating success: Personal, family and societal attributes affecting women in agritourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(7), 1699–1719. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1838528
Sisaudia, V. (2022). A secure gray-scale image watermarking technique in fractional DCT domain using zig-zag scrambling. Journal of Information Security and Applications, 69(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2022.103296
So, W. (2022). Beyond Fairness: Reparative Algorithms to Address Historical Injustices of Housing Discrimination in the US. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, (Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09), 988–1004. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533160
Sun, Y. (2022). Circulating Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and COVID-19: A Prospective Cohort Study and Mendelian Randomization Analysis. Frontiers in Medicine, 9(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2022.923746
Takoutsing, B. (2022). Comparing the prediction performance, uncertainty quantification and extrapolation potential of regression kriging and random forest while accounting for soil measurement errors. Geoderma, 428(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.116192
Terhorst, P. (2022). A Comprehensive Study on Face Recognition Biases beyond Demographics. IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, 3(1), 16–30. https://doi.org/10.1109/TTS.2021.3111823
Toorn, J. E. V. D. (2022). Carotid Plaque Composition and Prediction of Incident Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease. Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCIMAGING.121.013602
Wadoux, A. M. J. C. (2022). Beyond prediction: Methods for interpreting complex models of soil variation. Geoderma, 422(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115953
Williams, C. N. (2022). Continuing Care For Critically Ill Children Beyond Hospital Discharge: Current State of Follow-up. Hospital Pediatrics, 12(4), 359–368. https://doi.org/10.1542/hpeds.2021-006464
Wingrove, K. (2022). A Systematic Review of the Methods Used to Assess and Report Dietary Patterns. Frontiers in Nutrition, 9(Query date: 2026-03-29 15:15:09). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.892351
Authors
Copyright (c) 2026 Kim Minho, Nguyen Minh Tu, Shakib Ahmed
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.