Birth By Design

Raymond De Vries, Cecilia Benoit, Edwin van Teijlingen, Sirpa Wrede

"Through their comparative and multi-leveled analyses, the editors and contributors remind readers that while birth is a natural physiological phenomenon, our understandings of birth, the birthing process, and how and from whom mothers should receive maternity care are culturally based and are continually constructed and reconstructed. By re-focusing our attention on birth outcomes as women's experiences and the reproduction of societies and culture, the editors and contributors of Birth by Design do problematize all contexts of maternity care, and by doing so, challenge birthing mothers, caregivers, and policy makers in our thinking about the birthing process." -- Canadian Journal of Sociology Online (CJS Online), March - April 2002

• Part I: The Politics of Maternity Care Introduction Sirpa Wrede 1. Where to Give Birth? Politics and the Place of Birth Eugene Declercq, Raymond DeVries, Kirsi Viisainen, Helga B. Salvesen, and Sirpa Wrede 2. The State and Birth/The State of Birth: Maternal Health Policy in Three Countries Sirpa Wrede, Cecilia Benoit, and Jane Sandall 3. Changing Birth: Interest Groups and Maternity Care Policy Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Eugene Declercq, and Jane Sandall 4. Reforming Birth and (Re)Making Midwifery in North America Betty-Anne Daviss 5. Looking Within: Race, Class, and Birth Margaret K. Nelson and Rebecca Popenoe Part II: Providing Maternity Care Introduction Edwin R. van Teijlingen 6. Deciding Who Cares: Winners and Losers in the Late Twentieth Century Jane Sandall, Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Wouter J. Meijer, and Beate A. Schüecking 7. Designing Midwives: A Comparison of Educational Models Ceclia Benoit, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Edwin R. van Teijlingen, Jane Sandall, and Janneli F. Miller 8. Telling Stories of Midwives Leonie van der Hulst and Edwin R. van Teijlingen 9. Spoiling the Pregnancy: Prenatal Diagnosis in the Netherlands Barbara Katz Rothman Part III: Society, Technology, and Practice Introduction Cecilia Benoit 10. Maternity Care Policies and Maternity Care Practices: A Tale of Two Germanys Susan L. Erikson 11. Constructing Risk: Maternity Care, Law, and Malpractice Elizabeth Cartwright and Jan Thomas 12. Obstetrical Trajectories: On Training Women/Bodies for (Home) Birth Bernike Pasveer and Madeleine Akrich 13. What (and Why) Do Women Want? The Desires of Women and the Design of Maternity Care Raymond DeVries, Helga B. Salvesen, Therese A. Weigers, and A. Susan Williams Appendix: The Politics of Numbers: The Promise and Frustration of Cross-National Analysis Eugene Declercq and Kirsi Viisainen