Claire talks fertility, and we’re still having these conversations today

Claire is absolutely smitten with baby Bonnie (great name), and Jamie is well aware of it. In fact, in a beautiful drunken, woodland scene, he asks if she wants to keep the baby, as they have never had the chance to raise a baby together and this is probably their last shot. But Claire decides to leave wee Bonnie with a young woman whose own baby just died.

It also turns out that some of Claire’s medical work has accidentally been published in the newspaper – and it includes tips on how to prevent getting pregnant, telling readers when they are most fertile. Does this mean that she’s about to introduce contraception to 18th century North Caroliners?

And remember that love triangle I mentioned earlier? Well, what makes things so complicated is that the young woman involved, Alicia, is pregnant – and she is terrified of telling her parents. She even tries to shoot herself because she feels so ashamed. But Claire shows the young woman that she has a future with her child and helps her to escape her family.

These conversations around fertility issues – Claire’s infertility because of her age, the miseducation of contraception, the stigma of some pregnancies – are important to notice, as they highlight how prevalent they still are today. Women certainly didn’t have autonomy over their bodies back then, and they still don’t today.

Outlander season 5, episode 4 recap: why Claire’s conversations about fertility are so important