The article addresses the production of medical literature that offered advice on how mothers should raise their children. Doctors specializing in puericulture - educating mothers about topics like food, dress, hygiene, and behavior - believed that love alone was not enough to provide children with good training and education. As representatives of scientific truth and technique, these doctors tried to teach mothers to act according to the principles of puericulture, contributing primarily to the construction of the mother-nurse, an ideal endorsed by the authors of the three manuals published between 1938 and 1963 that are analyzed in this article.
maternity; medical counseling; childhood; puericulture