Overview
- This volume is unique in bringing together experiences of birth and pregnancy from more than 20 cultures around the world
- This volume brings a unifying theme: Power — who makes the decisions about birth and the conduct of the mother during labour?
- This volume shows how birth process is connected to the culture and illustrates why birth is a biocultural event
- This volume illustrates the many ways it is possible to give birth, so that parents can realize that the biomedical model is not the only one
Part of the book series: Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science (SACH, volume 5)
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Table of contents (26 chapters)
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Front Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book will explore the childbirth process through globally diverse perspectives in order to offer a broader context with which to think about birth. We will address multiple rituals and management models surrounding the labor and birth process from communities across the globe.
Labor and birth are biocultural events that are managed in countless ways. We are particularly interested in the notion of power. Who controls the pregnancy and the birth? Is it the hospital, the doctor, or the in-laws, and in which cultures does the mother have the control? These decisions, regarding place of birth, position, who receives the baby and even how the mother may or may not behave during the actual delivery, are all part of the different ways that birth is conducted.
One chapter of the book will be devoted to midwives and other birth attendants. There will also be chapters on the Evolution of Birth, on Women’s Birth Narratives, and on Child Spacing and Breastfeeding.
This book will bring together global research conducted by professional anthropologists, midwives and doctors who work closely with the individuals from the cultures they are writing about, offering a unique perspective direct from the cultural group.
Reviews
From the reviews:
“Childbirth Across Cultures is a compilation of research about the experience of pregnancy and birth around the globe. … Reading this book was a pleasure. There are pictures of cultural practices … maps, charts, and other diagrams that enrich the reader’s experience. … This book would be excellent for faculty and residents in family medicine and OB-GYN as well as graduate students in nursing, anthropology, sociology, social work, and public health. Medical students and those studying global health will find this book interesting as well.” (Amy Ellwood and Katie Kolonic, Family Medicine, Vol. 43 (1), January, 2011)Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Childbirth Across Cultures
Book Subtitle: Ideas and Practices of Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Postpartum
Editors: Helaine Selin
Series Title: Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2599-9
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-481-2598-2Published: 16 October 2009
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-3058-8Published: 14 March 2012
eBook ISBN: 978-90-481-2599-9Published: 01 December 2009
Series ISSN: 1568-2145
Series E-ISSN: 2215-1761
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 314
Number of Illustrations: 33 illustrations in colour
Topics: Anthropology, Regional and Cultural Studies, Gynecology