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Under the shadow of maternity: birth, death and puerperal insanity in Victorian Britain

Overview of attention for article published in History of Psychiatry, February 2012
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#36 of 661)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (85th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
facebook
1 Facebook page

Readers on

mendeley
68 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
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Article details
Title
Under the shadow of maternity: birth, death and puerperal insanity in Victorian Britain
Published in
History of Psychiatry, February 2012
DOI 10.1177/0957154x11428573
Pubmed ID
Authors
Abstract

Death and fear of death in cases of puerperal insanity can be linked to a much broader set of anxieties surrounding childbirth in Victorian Britain. Compared with other forms of mental affliction, puerperal insanity was known for its good prognosis, with many women recovering over the course of several months. Even so, a significant number of deaths were associated with the disorder, and a large proportion of sufferers struggled with urges to destroy their infants and themselves. The disorder evoked powerful delusions concerning death, with patients expressing intimations of mortality and longing for death.

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Mendeley demographics

Mendeley demographics

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 68 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Geographical breakdown
Country Count As %
United Kingdom 2 3%
United States 1 1%
Australia 1 1%
Unknown 64 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status
Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 9 13%
Researcher 8 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 7 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 10%
Professor > Associate Professor 6 9%
Other 17 25%
Unknown 14 21%
Readers by discipline
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 15 22%
Arts and Humanities 9 13%
Nursing and Health Professions 8 12%
Medicine and Dentistry 8 12%
Social Sciences 5 7%
Other 8 12%
Unknown 15 22%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 26. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 September 2026.
All research outputs
#1,900,139
of 34,388,610 outputs
Outputs from History of Psychiatry
#36
of 661 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,950
of 202,601 outputs
Outputs of similar age from History of Psychiatry
#1
of 7 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,388,610 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 661 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 202,601 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 7 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them