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Brought to Bed
Judith Walzer Leavitt
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Description for Brought to Bed
Paperback. This classic work reveals how childbirth has changed from colonial times to the present, including a new preface that discusses writings on the subject over the past three decades. Num Pages: 312 pages, 25 illus. BIC Classification: HBJK; HBLL; HBLW; JKSB1; MBX. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 216 x 141 x 18. Weight in Grams: 374.
Based on personal accounts by birthing women and their medical attendants, Brought to Bed reveals how childbirth has changed from colonial times to the present. Judith Walzer Leavitt's study focuses on the traditional woman-centered home-birthing practices, their replacement by male doctors, and the movement from the home to the hospital. She explains that childbearing women and their physicians gradually changed birth places because they believed the increased medicalization would make giving birth safer and more comfortable. Ironically, because of infection, infant and maternal mortality did not immediately decline. She concludes that birthing women held considerable power in determining labor ... Read moreand delivery events as long as childbirth remained in the home. The move to the hospital in the twentieth century gave the medical profession the upper hand. Leavitt also discusses recent events in American obstetrics that illustrate how women have attempted to retrieve some of the traditional women--and family--centered aspects of childbirth. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new preface that discusses the writing of the history of childbirth over the past three decades. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Oxford University Press Inc United States
Place of Publication
New York, United States
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Judith Walzer Leavitt
Judith Walzer Leavitt is Rupple Bascom and Ruth Bleier Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health, and Make Room For Daddy: The Journey from the Waiting Room to the Delivery Room.
Reviews for Brought to Bed
Serena Williams's childbirth experience... reminds us that even today, even privileged and healthy women must deal not only with medical problems but also with medical professionals who disregard their own bodily knowledge. Judith Walzer Leavitt's Brought to Bed, first published just over three decades ago and recently reissued as a thirtieth anniversary edition with a new preface that considers changing ... Read moreideas about how to write the history of gender, reminds us that women have always faced these struggles, while showing us how they supported each other and fought for change... Leavitt uncovers details and voices that still make the book worth reading
Fran Bigman, Time Literary Supplement
Certainly the most authoritative medical historical text on the subject in America at this time.
W. R. Penman, M.D. and D. I. Lansing, M.D., Obstetrics Society of Philadelphia
In this groundbreaking study...Leavitt has given the history of childbirth back to women. An elegant, sensitive, and fascinating book!
Regina Markell Morantz-Sanchez, University of California, Los Angeles
A superb book for anyone interested in birthing, obstetrics, or even just the history of women in the United States.
Journal of the American Medical Women's Association
A strong and sensitive contribution to understanding the (supine) position of today's childbearing woman.
Newsday
An absorbing, richly-documented and well-argued explanation of how childbirth moved from the home to the hospital....[Its] broad conception, its balance, and its basic commitment to reconstituting the voices of women make it a classic in women's history writing.
The Women's Review of Books
A book for men as well as women....Clearly written and persuasively documented.
Carl N. Degler, The New Republic
In this impressive history Judith Walzer Leavitt examines centuries of childbirth experiences and analyzes how and why changes occurred....There can be no question...about the importance of this excellent study.
Isis
A significant achievement....Certain to become a model for the new medical history, and for feminist scholarship as well.
Medical Humanities Review
Like a good chocolate dessert, Brought to Bed is rich and filling.
Journal of Nurse-Midwifery
A masterful examination of the competing medical, social, and intellectual forces that shaped modern obstetric practice....A wonderful book that gives new direction to the history of women and health.
Reviews in American History
Certainly the most authoritative medical historical text on the subject in America at this time.
W. R. Penman, M.D. and D. I. Lansing, M.D., Obstetrics Society of Philadelphia
In this groundbreaking study...Leavitt has given the history of childbirth back to women. An elegant, sensitive, and fascinating book!
Regina Markell Morantz-Sanchez, University of California, Los Angeles
A superb book for anyone interested in birthing, obstetrics, or even just the history of women in the United States.
Journal of the American Medical Women's Association
A strong and sensitive contribution to understanding the (supine) position of today's childbearing woman.
Newsday
An absorbing, richly-documented and well-argued explanation of how childbirth moved from the home to the hospital....[Its] broad conception, its balance, and its basic commitment to reconstituting the voices of women make it a classic in women's history writing.
The Women's Review of Books
A book for men as well as women....Clearly written and persuasively documented.
Carl N. Degler, The New Republic
In this impressive history Judith Walzer Leavitt examines centuries of childbirth experiences and analyzes how and why changes occurred....There can be no question...about the importance of this excellent study.
Isis
A significant achievement....Certain to become a model for the new medical history, and for feminist scholarship as well.
Medical Humanities Review
Like a good chocolate dessert, Brought to Bed is rich and filling.
Journal of Nurse-Midwifery
A masterful examination of the competing medical, social, and intellectual forces that shaped modern obstetric practice....A wonderful book that gives new direction to the history of women and health.
Reviews in American History
An exceptional book that broadens our understanding of the significance of childbirth in the lives of women and deepens our knowledge of how women have been active agents of change.
American Historical Review
In this impressive history Judith Walzer Leavitt examines two centuries of childbirth experiences and analyzes how and why changes occurred....There can be no question... about the importance of this excellent study.
ISIS
Brought to Bed is pleasantly readable, heavily annotated, and well organized. One closes the book wondering where the last thirty years' extreme interventionism fits into the grand scheme and what the future holds for the pregnant woman and her physician, and their mutual struggle for control of the process of labor and delivery.
Journal of the History of Medicine
This study is a major and most valuable addition to our understanding of the complex factors which have affected decision-making in obstetric care over the past two hundred years.
Medical History
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