They’re “More Children than Adults”: Teens, Unmarried Pregnancy, and the Canadian Medical Profession, 1945–611

This article examines the medical aspects of young, unmarried pregnancy in the early post-WWII period. It explores the roles played by physicians and nurses, their prescriptions for prenatal care, their psychologizing of girls’ problems, and the nature of girls’ hospital experiences. That these patients were indeed seen as “girls” and not women, is a central point; in fact, age, and the perception of what it meant to be “teenaged,” significantly shaped the perception, treatment, and experience of unmarried pregnancy in these years.