Birth Control

The Insidious Power of Men over Motherhood

De: Allison Yarrow

Narrado por: Vanessa Johansson

Modern medicine should make pregnancy and childbirth safer for all. But in Birth Control, award-winning journalist Allison Yarrow reveals how women are controlled, traumatized, injured, and even killed because of the traditionalist practices of medical professionals and hospitals.

Ever since doctors stole control of birth from midwives in the nineteenth century, women have been steamrolled by a male-dominated medical establishment that has everyone convinced that birthing bodies are inherently flawed and that every pregnancy is a crisis that it alone can "solve." Misogyny and racism, not scientific evidence and support, shape the overwhelming majority of America's four million annual births.

Drawing on extensive reporting, expert interviews, an original survey of 1,300 mothers, and her own personal experiences, Yarrow documents how modern maternal health care is insidiously, purposefully designed to take power from women to the detriment of their physical and mental health—not just during labor, but for years after. She then shows a better way, exploring solutions both cutting-edge and ancient to—finally—return power and control to birthing people.

©2023 Allison Yarrow (P)2024 Tantor

Powerful and so, so needed!

I’m so grateful that this book exists. Had we read it before our first birth, it would have given me more resolve to fight for the homebirth I wanted. Now having experienced homebirth and with plans in place to have another with my third baby, I’m so grateful more birthing people are getting access to the truth - that birth is a singular experience that we each deserve to have with our power, dignity and agency in tact! Thank you Allison Yarrow for your voice and work on this important book!!!