This groundbreaking book takes us around the world in search of birth models that work in order to improve the standard of care for mothers and families everywhere. The contributors describe examples of maternity services from both developing countries and wealthy industrialized societies that apply the latest scientific evidence to support and facilitate normal physiological birth; deal appropriately with complications; and, generate excellent birth outcomes - including psychological satisfaction for the mother. The book concludes with a description of the ideology that underlies all these working models - known internationally as the midwifery model of care.

Every human being is born and has gone through a process of birth. Yet the topic of birth remains deeply underrepresented in the humanities, overshadowed by a scholarly focus on death. This book explores how imagery is used ritualistically in religious, secular, and nonreligious ways during birth, through analysis of a wide variety of art, iconography, poetry, and material culture. Objects central to the book's study include religious figurines, paintings about birth, and other items representative of pregnancy, crowning, or giving birth that have an historical or original meaning connected to religion. Contemporary artists are also creating new art in which they represent birth and mothering as nonreligious events that are sacred or divine. Framed through the concept of social ontology, which examines the nature of the social world and studies how people create meaning out of the various objects, images, and processes that make up human social life, the book theorizes a social ontology of birth, focusing on how the meaning of imagery undergoes metamorphosis between the spheres of religion, secularity, nonreligion, and the sacred when used during birth as a rite of passage. Included in the study are more than thirty images of birth, some of which have never been written about before.

This benchmark collection of cross-cultural essays on reproduction and childbirth extends and enriches the work of Brigitte Jordan, who helped generate and define the field of the anthropology of birth. The authors' focus on authoritative knowledge--the knowledge that counts, on the basis of which decisions are made and actions taken--highlights the vast differences between birthing systems that give authority of knowing to women and their communities and those that invest it in experts and machines.
"Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge" offers first-hand ethnographic research conducted by anthropologists in sixteen different societies and cultures and includes the interdisciplinary perspectives of a social psychologist, a sociologist, an epidemiologist, a staff member of the World Health Organization, and a community midwife. Exciting directions for further research as well as pressing needs for policy guidance emerge from these illuminating explorations of authoritative knowledge about birth. This book is certain to follow Jordan's "Birth in Four Cultures" as the definitive volume in a rapidly expanding field.

This new collection turns a critical anthropological eye on the nature of health policy internationally. The authors reveal that in light of prevailing social inequalities, health policies may intend to protect public health, but in fact they often represent significant structural threats to the health and well being of the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and other subordinate groups. The volume focuses on the 'anthropology of policy,' which is concerned with the process of decision-making, the influences on decision-makers, and the impact of policy on human lives. This collaboration will be a critical resource for researchers and practitioners in medical anthropology, applied anthropology, medical sociology, minority issues, public policy, and health care issues.

"A fine resource for medical students, doctors, and medical educators."--Bernie Siegel, M.D. "The path one takes from being a doctor to embracing the fullness of our heritage as healers always leads right back to our own hearts. This book describes the journeys and the terrain in all its many facets."--Christiane Northrup, M.D., author, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom "A valuable map of the complex medical revolution that is slowly affecting us all."--David Hess, coauthor, Women Confront Cancer Why would a successful physician who has undergone seven years of rigorous Western medical training learn to practice homeopathy or Chinese medicine? From Doctor to Healer answers this question as it traces the transformational journeys of physicians who move across the philosophical spectrum of American medicine from doctor to healer. Robbie Davis-Floyd and Gloria St. John conducted extensive interviews to discover how and why physicians make the move to alternative medicine, what sparks this shift, and what beliefs they abandon or embrace in the process. After outlining the basic models of American health care--the technocratic, humanistic, and holistic paradigms--the authors follow the thoughts and experiences of forty physicians as they expand their horizons in order to offer more effective patient care. The book focuses on the radical shift from one end of the spectrum to the other--from the technocratic approach to holism--made by most of the interviewees. Because many American physicians resist such a drastic change, the authors also address the less radical transition to humanism--a movement toward compassionate care arising from within the medical system. Robbie Davis-Floyd is a Research Fellow at the University of Texas, Austin, and a medical anthropologist. She is the author of Birth as an American Rite of Passage and coeditor of Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, and Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots. Gloria St. John has been involved in the business end of health care for twenty-five years and has served as Executive Director of the MetaPhysicians. She is the editor of a homeopathic journal and is presently studying homeopathy.