Anthropology of Pregnancy and Childbirth

Anthropology of Pregnancy and Childbirth: Reexamining Reproduction
Etsuko Matsuoka

186 mm x 130 mm
278 pages
JPY 2,400
ISBN 9784790716273
Pub date: May 2014
Rights sold: Korean

Pregnancy and childbirth deeply influence a woman’s life. In every society, there are midwives and maternity nurses who accompany and support childbearing women. Through fieldwork conducted over several years in Japan, other parts of Asia, and Europe, this book discusses how women can bear children in a healthy and satisfying way.

Points of Appeal

1. View childbirth as a culture, relative to the medical context
2. Extensive interviews with women and midwives

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Births constructed by culture

1 Cultural Anthropology’s study of childbirth
2 The origins of childbirth: Giving birth, taking birth, and being born
3 Women’s experiences of childbirth are created

Chapter 2: How childbirth in Japan has changed: Childbirth becomes a medical treatment

1 Pre-modern, modern, and post-modern childbirth
2 Premodern childbirth: Birth in the home and community
3 Modern childbirth: birth in the hospital
4 Modern childbirth at a standstill: Lamaze law and women’s lib
5 The paradox of medical care
6 Postmodern childbirth: childbirth as a lifestyle

Chapter 3: Birthplace and power

1 The Agnes Gereb case
2 Hungarian women’s childbirth: Interviews with Agnes and women
3 The court case on home births
4 Why home birth is a problem: Hospital, home, and ambulance

Chapter 4: Toward a childbirth where women’s health and human rights are protected

1 Valuing normal birth (Normal birth)
2 Choosing the place of birth: The case of the United Kingdom
3 Protecting the normal birth: The case of the Netherlands
4 Labor or anesthesia: The meaning of pain
5 Woman-centered maternity care

Notes/Afterword/Index

Afterword (excerpt)
If it were an illness, we would thank them for fixing it, but childbirth is a physiological activity for women, and it is hard when they cannot give birth at their own pace. You can imagine how difficult it would be if the time and frequency of eating and defecation were medically controlled. It is impossible to medically intervene in childbirth to make it better.