Main description:

All cultures are concerned with the business of childbirth, so much so that it can never be described as a purely physiological or even psychological event. This volume draws together work from a range of anthropologists and midwives who have found anthropological approaches useful in their work. Using case studies from a variety of cultural settings, the writers explore the centrality of the way time is conceptualized, marked and measured to the ways of perceiving and managing childbirth: how women, midwives and other birth attendants are affected by issues of power and control, but also actively attempt to change established forms of thinking and practice. The stories are engaging as well as critical and invite the reader to think afresh about time, and about reproduction.

Contents:

List of Figures

Foreword

Ronnie Frankenberg

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I: HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Chapter 1. From Tradition to Modernity: Time and Childbirth in Historical Perspective

Christine McCourt and Fiona Dykes

Chapter 2. Cosmologies, Concepts and Theories: Time and Childbirth in Cross-cultural Perspective

Christine McCourt

PART II: TIME AND CHILDBIRTH PRACTICES

Chapter 3. Counting Time in Pregnancy and Labour

Soo Downe and Fiona Dykes

Chapter 4. The Progress of Labour: Orderly Chaos?

Clare Winter and Margie Duff

Chapter 5. Time and Midwifery Practice

Trudy Stevens

Chapter 6. "Waiting on Birth": Management of Time and Place in a Birth Centre

Denis Walsh

Chapter 7. Management of Time in Aboriginal and Northern Midwifery Settings

Gisela Becker

PART III: TIME AND CHILDBIRTH EXPERIENCES

Chapter 8. Narrative Time: Stories, Childbirth and Midwifery

Oloef Olafsdottir and Mavis Kirkham

Chapter 9. How Long Have I Got? Time in Labour: Themes from Women's Birth Stories

Christine McCourt

Chapter 10. "Feeding All the Time": Women's Temporal Dilemmas around Breastfeeding in Hospital

Fiona Dykes

Chapter 11. Living with "Uncertainty": Women's Experience of Breastfeeding in the Current Japanese Social Context

Naoko Hashimoto

Conclusion

Notes on Contributors

Index