St Kilda: childbirth and the women of Main Street

In the nineteenth century in the island of St Kilda, faced with maternal mortality which reached 107.1 and excessive neonatal mortality, women went to Obe, now Leverburgh, in the island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides to be confined, often marooned there for many months due to treacherous seas. Using family reconstruction techniques the reproductive history of some of these women is traced and these strategies assessed.