Traditionally, women's experiences have formed the basis of respected mothering practice. As scientific and technical expertise gained in prominence throughout the 19th century, increasingly women were told that they needed to understand scientific and medical knowledge in order to raise their children appropriately and healthfully. This ideology of "scientific motherhood" was modified over the decades, as women were increasingly told that they needed to follow the lead of scientific and medical experts. In other words, rather than actively learning for themselves, women were to depend upon the instructions of scientific and medical authorities, primarily men. The health-care providers shaped maternal practice but it was not merely a case of physicians imposing their ideas on passive mothers. Women could and did resist physicians but significantly they used contemporary scientific and medical knowledge to do so.