Control of Childbirth

Phyllis L. Brodsky has been a nurse, hospital clinical educator, and university instructor. Also the author of articles and chapters in journals and manuals, she lives in Berlin, Maryland.

“recommended”—Choice; “how and why women became excluded from their own child-bearing experience and how this power can be regained. Readers get coverage of the centuries-long battles between midwives and physicians”—Library Journal; “Anyone who is teaching Childbirth classes to the public and those nurses who work labor and delivery need to read this book. The well researched history was excellent”—Linda Barnes, RN Educator.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgments      Foreword by Mary Ann Shah      Preface      Introduction      1. Childbirth in Primitive and Ancient Times      2. The Middle Ages: An Era of Despair and Persecution      3. The Sixteenth Century: A Renaissance      4. The Seventeenth Century: Men and Their Instruments      5. The Eighteenth Century: Men and Science      6. The Nineteenth Century: Men and Disease      7. Childbirth in Early America      8. Nineteenth-Century America: The Birth of Obstetrics and Gynecology      9. Early Twentieth-Century America: The “Midwife Problem” and Medicalized Childbirth      10. The Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Technology-Managed Childbirth, By Edna Quinn      11. The Twenty-First Century: Technological Childbirth Challenged      12. Conclusion: Women in Power      Notes      Bibliography      Index