berghahn New York · Oxford

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Series Overview: The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Introduction: Obstetricians Speak
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Chapter 1. On Becoming an Abortion Provider in the US: An Autoethnographic Account

Chapter 2. Abortion, Professional Identity, and Generational Meaning Making among US Ob/Gyns
Rebecca Henderson, Chu J. Hsiao, and Jody Steinauer

Chapter 3. My Transformation from an Obstetrician to a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Subspecialist: Autoethnographic Thoughts on Situated Knowledges and Habitus
Ashish Premkumar

Chapter 4. Cold Steel and Sunshine: Ethnographic and Autoethnographic Perspectives on Two Obstetric Careers in the US from Across the Chasm
Kathleen Hanlon-Lundberg

Chapter 5. An Awakening
Jesanna Cooper

Chapter 6. Repercussions of a Paradigm Shift in the Professional and Personal Life of a Brazilian Obstetrician
Rosana Fontes

Chapter 7. The Bullying and Persecution of a Humanistic/Holistic Obstetrician in Brazil: The Benefits and Costs of My Paradigm Shift
Ricardo Jones

Chapter 8. Hungarian Birth Models Seen Through the Prism of Prison: The Journey of Ágnes Geréb
Ágnes Geréb and Katalin Fábián

Chapter 9. Adopting the Midwifery Model of Care in India
Evita Fernandez

Chapter 10. “Birth with No Regret” in Turkey: The Natural Childbirth of the 21st Century
Hakan Çoker

Chapter 11. Attempting to Maintain a Positive Awareness about Vaginal Breech Birth in Australia
Andrew Bisits

Chapter 12. Mixing Modalities in My Technocratic/Humanistic Obstetric Practice in the US: Ideology and Rationales
Marco Gianotti

Chapter 13. How an Obstetrician Promoted Respectful Care in Canada and in the World
André Lalonde

Conclusions: What Have We Learned from Obstetricians?
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Index

Obstetricians Speak

On Training, Practice, Fear, and Transformation

Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

345 pages, 21 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-80073-828-7 Hb Published (June 2023)

eISBN 978-1-80073-829-4 eBook

Details

For the first time ever in a social science work, obstetricians tell their own stories of training, practice, fear, and transformation in this the first of the 3-volume series The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession.

These stories range from those of abortion providers to those of maternal-fetal medicine specialists. Several chapters tell the stories of obstetricians who have made paradigm shifts from technocratic to humanistic practices, the benefits and joys of these paradigm shifts, and the ostracism, bullying, and outright persecution these humanistic obstetricians have suffered.

This book is a must-read for students, social scientists, and all maternity care practitioners who seek to understand the ideologies and motives of individual obstetricians.

 An excerpt from Kathleen Hanlon-Lundberg’s chapter:
Largely maligned in reproductive anthropological literature as callous—if not brutal—self-serving effectors of the over-medicalization of childbirth, most obstetricians whom I know and have worked with are devoted to providing respectful, individualized care to their patients.

Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Rice University, Houston, Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction, is a well-known medical/reproductive anthropologist and international speaker and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery, obstetrics, and reproduction.

Ashish Premkumar MD is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, as well as a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist practicing at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Illinois. He is also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The Graduate School at Northwestern University.

Series: Volume 1, The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area:

LC: GN473 .D38 2022

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; MED033000 MEDICAL/Gynecology & Obstetrics; SOC032000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Gender Studies