TY - CHAP

T1 - Birth

AU - Schües, Christina

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Birth, puberty, and death are live-changing events that are recognized in culturally and socially different forms. In many cultures, birth is accompanied by special rituals and ceremonies. The technology and medicine-oriented Western culture embraces only few medical and social particular rituals but has largely standardized childbirth, approaching it with a “fear-based” attitude within a discourse of risk (Davis-Floyd 1994: 24). Understanding birth as a risky transition for the mother and the child leads to fear and an urge to put it into a medical practice. Practices of birth vary concerning the decision whether birth takes place in the hospital (98% in the United States), in a birth center (about 10% in the Netherlands), or at home (about 20% in the Netherlands). And these practices differ strongly concerning the process: birth can be “natural,” labor-induced, or cesarean, experienced with pain-relief medication or without, in inherently high-risk conditions, and it can end in stillbirth. In the 19th century, the birth practice was taken from the hand of midwives and put into the hands of male physicians. Philosophers have critically debated the “natural” birth movement as well as birth under medication (Kukla 2005, 2011; Lyerly 2006; Purdy 2001).

AB - Birth, puberty, and death are live-changing events that are recognized in culturally and socially different forms. In many cultures, birth is accompanied by special rituals and ceremonies. The technology and medicine-oriented Western culture embraces only few medical and social particular rituals but has largely standardized childbirth, approaching it with a “fear-based” attitude within a discourse of risk (Davis-Floyd 1994: 24). Understanding birth as a risky transition for the mother and the child leads to fear and an urge to put it into a medical practice. Practices of birth vary concerning the decision whether birth takes place in the hospital (98% in the United States), in a birth center (about 10% in the Netherlands), or at home (about 20% in the Netherlands). And these practices differ strongly concerning the process: birth can be “natural,” labor-induced, or cesarean, experienced with pain-relief medication or without, in inherently high-risk conditions, and it can end in stillbirth. In the 19th century, the birth practice was taken from the hand of midwives and put into the hands of male physicians. Philosophers have critically debated the “natural” birth movement as well as birth under medication (Kukla 2005, 2011; Lyerly 2006; Purdy 2001).

KW - Philosophy

U2 - 10.4324/9781315720739

DO - 10.4324/9781315720739

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-1-138-84679-1

T3 - Routledge philosophy companions

SP - 103

EP - 114

BT - The Routledge companion to philosophy of medicine

A2 - Solomon, M.

A2 - Simon, J.

A2 - Kincaid , H.

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

CY - New York

ER -