This book shines a light on the way in which risk – in and beyond childbirth – is highly contextual, and the way in which risk-management strategies can be understood as socially and materially constructed.
This book investigates why women choose ‘birth outside the system’ and makes connections between women’s right to choose where they birth and violations of human rights within maternity care systems. Choosing to birth at home can force women out of mainstream maternity care, despite research supporting the safety of this option for low-risk women attended by midwives. When homebirth is not supported as a birthplace option, women will defy mainstream medical advice, and if a midwife is not available, choose either an unregulated careprovider or birth without assistance. This book examines the circumstances and drivers behind why women nevertheless choose homebirth by bringing legal and ethical perspectives together with the latest research on high-risk homebirth (breech and twin births), freebirth, birth with unregulated careproviders and the oppression of midwives who support unorthodox choices. Stories from women who have pursued alternatives in Australia, Europe, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Middle East and India are woven through the research. Insight and practical strategies are shared by doctors, midwives, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists on how to manage the tension between professional obligations and women’s right to bodily autonomy. This book, the first of its kind, is an important contribution to considerations of place of birth and human rights in childbirth.
The deprivations and cruelty of slavery have overshadowed our understanding of the institution's most human dimension: birth. We often don't realize that after the United States stopped importing slaves in 1808, births were more important than ever; slavery and the southern way of life could continue only through babies born in bondage. In the antebellum South, slaveholders' interest in slave women was matched by physicians struggling to assert their own professional authority over childbirth, and the two began to work together to increase the number of infants born in the slave quarter. In unprecedented ways, doctors tried to manage the health of enslaved women from puberty through the reproductive years, attempting to foster pregnancy, cure infertility, and resolve gynecological problems, including cancer. Black women, however, proved an unruly force, distrustful of both the slaveholders and their doctors. With their own healing traditions, emphasizing the power of roots and herbs and the critical roles of family and community, enslaved women struggled to take charge of their own health in a system that did not respect their social circumstances, customs, or values. Birthing a Slave depicts the competing approaches to reproductive health that evolved on plantations, as both black women and white men sought to enhance the health of enslaved mothers--in very different ways and for entirely different reasons. Birthing a Slave is the first book to focus exclusively on the health care of enslaved women, and it argues convincingly for the critical role of reproductive medicine in the slave system of antebellum America.
More than eighty designs--iconic, archaic, quotidian, and taboo--that have defined the arc of human reproduction. While birth often brings great joy, making babies is a knotty enterprise. The designed objects that surround us when it comes to menstruation, birth control, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood vary as oddly, messily, and dramatically as the stereotypes suggest. This smart, image-rich, fashion-forward, and design-driven book explores more than eighty designs--iconic, conceptual, archaic, titillating, emotionally charged, or just plain strange--that have defined the relationships between people and babies during the past century. Each object tells a story. In striking images and engaging text, Designing Motherhood unfolds the compelling design histories and real-world uses of the objects that shape our reproductive experiences. The authors investigate the baby carrier, from the Snugli to BabyBjörn, and the (re)discovery of the varied traditions of baby wearing; the tie-waist skirt, famously worn by a pregnant Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy, and essential for camouflaging and slowly normalizing a public pregnancy; the home pregnancy kit, and its threat to the authority of male gynecologists; and more. Memorable images--including historical ads, found photos, and drawings--illustrate the crucial role design and material culture plays throughout the arc of human reproduction. The book features a prologue by Erica Chidi and a foreword by Alexandra Lange. Contributors Luz Argueta-Vogel, Zara Arshad, Nefertiti Austin, Juliana Rowen Barton, Lindsey Beal, Thomas Beatie, Caitlin Beach, Maricela Becerra, Joan E. Biren, Megan Brandow-Faller, Khiara M. Bridges, Heather DeWolf Bowser, Sophie Cavoulacos, Meegan Daigler, Anna Dhody, Christine Dodson, Henrike Dreier, Adam Dubrowski, Michelle Millar Fisher, Claire Dion Fletcher, Tekara Gainey, Lucy Gallun, Angela Garbes, Judy S. Gelles, Shoshana Batya Greenwald, Robert D. Hicks, Porsche Holland, Andrea Homer-Macdonald, Alexis Hope, Malika Kashyap, Karen Kleiman, Natalie Lira, Devorah L Marrus, Jessica Martucci, Sascha Mayer, Betsy Joslyn Mitchell, Ginger Mitchell, Mark Mitchell, Aidan O’Connor, Lauren Downing Peters, Nicole Pihema, Alice Rawsthorn, Helen Barchilon Redman, Airyka Rockefeller, Julie Rodelli, Raphaela Rosella, Loretta J. Ross, Ofelia Pérez Ruiz, Hannah Ryan, Karin Satrom, Tae Smith, Orkan Telhan, Stephanie Tillman, Sandra Oyarzo Torres, Malika Verma, Erin Weisbart, Deb Willis, Carmen Winant, Brendan Winick, Flaura Koplin Winston
Of comparative developed countries, only Brazil and Italy have higher c-section rates; c-sections occur in only 19 percent of births in France, seventeen percent of births in Japan, and sixteen percent of births in Finland. How did this happen? Here the author challenges most existing explanations of the unprecedented rise in c-section rates, which locate the cause of this trend in physicians practicing defensive medicine, women choosing c-sections for scheduling reasons, or women's poor health and older ages. The explanation of the c-section epidemic is more complicated, taking into account the power and structure of legal, political, medical, and professional organizations; gendered ideas that devalue women; hospital organizational structures and protocols; and professional standards in the medical and insurance communities.
Count down your pregnancy day by day with advice from a team of experts and amazing images for every stage of your baby's development. Fully updated to reflect changes in medical practice, including advice on non-invasive prenatal testing and ways to adapt special diets during pregnancy, The Day-by-day Pregnancy Book provides a comprehensive look at every week of pregnancy. From early foetal development to how your hormones prepare you for birth, Q&As with experts and mums will help put your mind at ease. The Day-by-day Pregnancy Book also breaks down the 12 hours post delivery with an hour-by-hour account and the day-by-day format continues for the first two weeks of life with a newborn baby. The Day-by-day Pregnancy Book will be your pregnancy bible - every day.
Full of honest advice and inclusive options, Why Did No One Tell Me This? is the funny, personality-filled, illustrated guide to pregnancy, birth, and beyond that modern parents have been waiting for. Pregnancy and childbirth are full of big questions -- what if my baby is enormous? Will my water break naturally? What even goes into a 'birth plan'? How on earth am I going to keep this child alive once it's here? And where do I turn for advice that will really work for me and my life? In Why Did No One Tell Me This? doulas and reproductive health experts Natalia Hailes and Ash Spivak answer these questions and more for today's wellness-focused, intersectional parents-to-be. Drawing on years of experience in their birth doula practice Brilliant Bodies, Natalia and Ash guide readers through the entire process, from the earliest stages of pregnancy to the jungle of postpartum feelings and responsibilities. Bite-sized pieces of advice are interspersed with vibrant illustrations by artist Louise Reimer to break down the doubts and fears that often surround childbirth, empowering readers to explore their own individual needs, know their rights, and find their voice both during and after pregnancy. By addressing common fears, incorporating regular tips for partners, and providing information on a wide array of birth and parents styles, this unique and inclusive guide is the perfect tool for a new generation of parents.
Practical advice covering contraception, nutrition, diet, and exercise to increase optimal fertility. Includes information for both males and females and ways for them to curtail environmental factors and stress -- Source other than Library of Congress.
In many developed countries, population decline poses economic and social strains and may even threaten national security. Through historical-political case studies of Sweden, France, Italy, Japan, and Singapore, The Other Population Crisis explores the motivations, politics, programming, and consequences of national efforts to promote births. Steven Philip Kramer finds a significant government role in stopping declines in birth rates. Sweden’s and France’s pro-natalist programs, which have succeeded, share the characteristics of being universal, not means-tested, and based on gender equality and making it easy for women to balance work and family. The programs in Italy, Japan, and Singapore, which have failed so far, have not devoted sufficient resources consistently enough to make a difference and do not support gender equality and women’s work-family balance, Kramer finds.
Look around you and think for a minute: Is America too crowded? For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that’s busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else. It’s all bunk. The “population bomb” never exploded. Instead, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we’ve been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies. Population growth has been slowing for two generations. The world’s population will peak, and then begin shrinking, within the next fifty years. In some countries, it’s already started. Japan, for instance, will be half its current size by the end of the century. In Italy, there are already more deaths than births every year. China’s One-Child Policy has left that country without enough women to marry its men, not enough young people to support the country’s elderly, and an impending population contraction that has the ruling class terrified. And all of this is coming to America, too. In fact, it’s already here. Middle-class Americans have their own, informal one-child policy these days. And an alarming number of upscale professionals don’t even go that far—they have dogs, not kids. In fact, if it weren’t for the wave of immigration we experienced over the last thirty years, the United States would be on the verge of shrinking, too. What happened? Everything about modern life—from Bugaboo strollers to insane college tuition to government regulations—has pushed Americans in a single direction, making it harder to have children. And making the people who do still want to have children feel like second-class citizens. What to Expect When No One’s Expecting explains why the population implosion happened and how it is remaking culture, the economy, and politics both at home and around the world. Because if America wants to continue to lead the world, we need to have more babies.