Birthing the West


Book Description

"Birthing the West: Mothers and Midwives in the Rockies and Plains shows how women and mothers constructed citizens, and how public health entities usurped that role, with varied long-term impacts on women, men, families, community, and American identity"--




Birthing the West


Book Description

Childbirth defines families, communities, and nations. In Birthing the West, Jennifer J. Hill fills the silences around historical reproduction with copious new evidence and an enticing narrative, describing a process of settlement in the American West that depended on the nurturing connections of reproductive caregivers and the authority of mothers over birth. Economic and cultural development depended on childbirth. Hill’s expanded vision suggests that the mantra of cattle drives and military campaigns leaves out essential events and falls far short of an accurate representation of American expansion. The picture that emerges in Birthing the West presents a more complete understanding of the American West: no less moving or engaging than the typical stories of extraction and exploration but concurrently intriguing and complex. Birthing the West unearths the woman-centric practice of childbirth across Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming, a region known as a death zone for pregnant women and their infants. As public health entities struggled to establish authority over its isolated inhabitants, they collaborated with physicians, eroding the power and control of mothers and midwives. The transition from home to hospital and from midwife to doctor created a dramatic shift in the intimately personal act of birth.




The Birth of the West


Book Description

A narrative history of the origins of Western civilization argues that Europe was transformed in the tenth century from a continent rife with violence and ignorance to a continent on the rise.




Outlawed


Book Description

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK * INDIE NEXT SELECTION * LIBRARY READS SELECTION * AMAZON EDITORS' CHOICE * WASHINGTON POST BEST OF THE YEAR The "terrifying, wise, tender, and thrilling" (R.O. Kwon) adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all. Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.




Birthing a Nation


Book Description

Birthing a Nation is about national identity and the American West. If it is a truism that facing west was the American male version of invoking the Muse, what happened if you were female? Most past interpretations of western American literature have echoed Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier hypothesis, emphasizing the conflict of wilderness and civilization, the hero of rugged individualism, the act of returning to origins and reemerging as the reborn American Adam. In this reading of western American women writers who responded to the challenge to give birth to a nation, Susan J. Rosowski proposes an alternative, more hopeful affirmation of our cultural history and perhaps our cultural destiny. Rosowski begins by tracing the birth metaphor through three and a half centuries of American letters. She reexamines the premises underlying the telling of the literary West and posits a female model of creativity at the genesis of American literature. She follows four authors on a multigenerational journey, beginning with Margaret Fuller in 1843, moving on a generation later to Willa Cather, advancing to Jean Stafford, and ending with Marilynne Robinson. In her reading of these writers who most directly and deeply believed in literature as a serious and noble form of art and who wrote to influence how the country perceived itself, Rosowski contributes to the ongoing process of remapping the literary landscape




Your Pregnancy Companion


Book Description

Your Pregnancy Companion is an informative and reassuring guide to pregnancy, birth and the first weeks with your baby. Full of the latest essential information and expert advice, it will help you to prepare yourself for motherhood and give your baby the best start in life. Zita also includes her own unique methods and advice which make her so successful with her clients’ pregnancies, such as relaxation techniques to prepare for birth, simple Mind-Body-Baby exercises to start bonding with your baby during pregnancy, and information on nutrition to help control morning sickness, sleep well and feel more energetic. Your Pregnancy Companion includes: · Stage-by-stage photographs of your developing baby · What to eat to stay healthy and help your baby develop · What to expect from antenatal care · How to prepare yourself physically and mentally for the birth · Information on genetics · Sections for expectant dads and preparing for fatherhood · Specific advice for mothers who have had IVF, have a higher risk pregnancy or who are expecting twins · Q&A sections to answer common questions and concerns · Essential advice to help you through the first weeks of parenthood, including breast- and bottle-feeding, promoting good sleep, keeping your baby clean and comfortable, ‘baby blues’/ PND, understanding your baby’s cries and having fun with your baby This is the perfect companion to help you prepare yourself physically and mentally for the most incredible and unique time in your life.




Birth Settings in America


Book Description

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.




Giving Birth With Confidence (Official Lamaze Guide, 3rd Edition)


Book Description

For a Safe and Healthy Birth… Your Way! Giving Birth with Confidence will help take the mystery out of having a baby and help you better understand how your body works during pregnancy and childbirth, giving you the confidence to make decisions that best ensure the safety and health of you and your baby. Giving Birth with Confidence is the first and only pregnancy and childbirth guide written by Lamaze International, the leading childbirth education organization in North America. Written with a respectful, positive tone, this book presents: • Information to help you choose your maternity care provider and place of birth • Practical strategies to help you work effectively with your care provider • Information on how pregnancy and birth progress naturally • Steps you can take to alleviate fear and manage pain during labor • The best available medical evidence to help you make informed decisions Previously titled The Official Lamaze Guide, this 3rd edition has updated information on: • How vaginal birth, keeping mother and baby together, and breastfeeding help to build the baby’s microbiome. • How hormones naturally start and regulate labor and release endorphins to help alleviate pain. • Maternity-care practices that can disrupt the body’s normal functioning. • The latest recommendations on lifestyle issues like alcohol, vitamins, and caffeine. • Room sharing and cosleeping: the controversy, recommendations, and safety guidelines. • Out-of-hospital births are on the rise: New research and advice on planned home birth, including ACOG’s revised guidelines, which support women’s choices and promote seamless transfer to hospital, if needed. • The importance of avoiding unnecessary caesareans for mother and child. Includes the new ACOG guidelines on inductions and active labor. • The research in support of the Lamaze International’s “Six Healthy Birth Practices,” which are: • Let labor begin on its own. • Walk, move around, and change positions throughout labor. • Bring a loved one, friend, or doula for continuous support. • Avoid interventions that aren’t medically necessary. • Avoid giving birth on your back and follow your body’s urges to push. • Keep mother and baby together—it’s best for mother, baby, and breastfeeding.




Rediscovering Birth


Book Description

For thousands of years women have given birth among people they know in a place they know well. Knowledge is shared between the participants and birth is a social event. In this new, revised edition of her classic book, Sheila Kitzinger explores the universal experience of pregnancy and birth. She looks closely at the place of birth, what is done to help women in childbirth and examines the bond traditionally formed between mothers and midwives.




Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank


Book Description

"[An] engrossing survey of the history of childbirth." —Stephen Lowman, Washington Post Making and having babies—what it takes to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and deliver—have mystified women and men throughout human history. The insatiably curious Randi Hutter Epstein journeys through history, fads, and fables, and to the fringe of science. Here is an entertaining must-read—an enlightening celebration of human life.