Childbirth in a Technocratic Age: The Documentation of Women’s Ex ...

said so. In the final scene, the lead sits comfortably in her hospital bed, any grief over having missed the birth experience she had expected seemingly washed away by the perfect baby she holds in her arms.

I cannot know whether the writers of that sitcom intended it, but the program captured what 21st-century U.S. women have come to expect as normal and acceptable in childbirth. First, hospital birth managed by experts (as opposed to mothers) is viewed as superior to any alternative, whatever that may be. Labor without an epidural is agonizing and, more important, unnecessary. Labor with an epidural is pleasant. Fetal heads are large, the birth canal is narrow, and cesarean surgery is an excellent—if not the only—solution. Obstetric medical procedures produce perfect babies with no negative consequences. Mothers’ voices do not matter because men—husbands, doctors, limousine drivers—are in charge.

Those favoring this prevailing hospital-based, doctor-centered maternal-care paradigm argue that it offers mothers and babies greater safety than any alternative. It is also tirelessly argued that increasingly aggressive obstetric intervention like that shown in the sitcom has come in response to worries over litigation; birthing women and juries view active intervention as more responsible than allowing nature to take its course. Both points are certainly debatable, as this text’s scientific data and maternal reports make clear. Less debatable, however, is that the prevailing maternal-care paradigm generates big income for large, powerful institutions and associated practitioners, especially when childbirth proceeds quickly and involves multiple interventions, such as epidurals and cesareans.

But like the lead character in the sitcom just described, some mothers want to experience childbirth according to nature’s and their own bodies’ design. Also like the lead character in the sitcom, most are forced to do so in traditional institutions because they have few practical alternatives and because, like most American women, they are subject to cultural assumptions and related efforts by major medical organizations to promote the idea that anything except institutional birth is dangerous and irresponsible. Granted, medical institutions have worked to make hospital birth more appealing; efforts include dressing up maternity