Hospital Birth

Review Essay: Infertility in History and the History of Reproduction

“…From this view, underlying contemporary controversies over home births and 'natural' pain relief on labour wards is a backstory of women within but also outside feminist circles growing 'more assertive in demanding "choice" in childbirth'. 81 Reproduction's chapters on managing fertility also contribute significantly to its layered picture of gender, agency and control. On the basis of around 80,000 cases recorded by the astrologer-physicians Simon Forman and Richard Napier between 1596 and 1634, Lauren Kassell brings to light how early modern 'patients and practitioners negotiated narratives of illness and readings of signs, drawing on epistemologies more shared than competing'.…”

The impact of technology on pregnancy and childbirth: creating and managing obstetrical risk in different cultural and socio-economic contexts

“…(Over)medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth and related public debates and controversies The growth of medical technology in pregnancy and childbirth is a well-established phenomenon. During the twentieth century, the locus of childbirth shifted from women's own homes to institutional settings managed by professionals, first in the western-industrial countries and especially the US (Leavitt, 1986), and then gradually these technologies were diffused elsewhere (Al-Galiani, 2018). In parallel to the vast movement of hospitalisation of birth, obstetrical knowledge, technologies and practices transformed the maternal experience in a radical manner, while at the same time establishing the 'biomedical' or the 'techno-scientific' management of birth.…”