Pushing in Silence: Modernizing Puerto Rico and the Medicalization of Childbirth
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.86 (821 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1477314121 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 274 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-02-10 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Lopez, City College of New York, author of Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s Struggle for Reproductive Freedom) . This history has not been written before. The research is original and unique and is a contribution to the fields of sociology, anthropology, history, and biomedicine." (Iris O. "A brilliantly written, accessible, and comprehensive analysis of the multifaceted social, cultural, and historical conditions that led to the medicalization of birthing in Puerto Rico, which enabled doctors to replace midwives
Córdova is an associate professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Nazareth College. . Isabel M
Isabel M. In the realm of heath care, the development of medical education, new medical technologies, and a new faith in science radically redefined childbirth and its practice. Prior to 1950, registered midwives on the island outnumbered registered doctors by two to one, and they attended well over half of all deliveries. As Puerto Rico rapidly industrialized from the late 1940s until the 1970s, the social, political, and economic landscape changed profoundly. What had traditionally been a home-based, family-oriented process, assisted by women and midwives and "accomplished" by mothers, became a medicalized, hospital-based procedure, "accomplished" and directed by biomedical, predominantly male, practitioners, and, ultimately reconfigured, after the 1980s, into a technocratic model of childbirth, driven by doctors' fears of malpractice suits and hospitals' corporate concerns.Pushing in Silence charts the medicalization of childbirth in Puerto Rico and demonstrates how biomedicine is culturally constructed within regional and historical contexts. Córdova traces how, over the next quarter-century, midwifery almost completely disappeared as state programs led by scientifically trained experts and organized by bureaucratic institutions restructured and formalized birthing practices. Only after cesarean rates skyrocketed in the 1980s and 1990s did midwifery make a modest return through the practices of five newly trained midwives. This history, which mirrors simil