Maternal and child health in medical-social notebooks. Historical analysis of family mandates during the civic-military dictatorship in southern Chile, 1973-1990

Abstract

Public policies addressed to the poorest families during the Pinochetist Dictatorship came from the area of health and social development, therefore, we analyzed the discourses in the Cuadernos médico-sociales considering motherhood and rurality in southern Chile, with an emphasis on social history with a gender perspective. Our hypothesis is that the health area was modernized to give greater emphasis to preventive medicine aimed at the most vulnerable and unprotected groups of people, such as pregnant mothers and children, from a geopolitical perspective. However, the Medical College of Chile, through the Cuadernos médico-sociales, represents the heterogeneity and tensions regarding the discourses and mandates related to motherhood and child-maternal relationships, especially in some criticisms of the Ministry of Health and the lack of resources.