The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

Born in the USA examines issues including midwifery and the safety of out-of-hospital birth, how the process of becoming a doctor can adversely affect both practitioners and their patients, and why there has been a rise in the use of risky but doctor-friendly interventions, including the use of Cytotec, a drug that has not been approved by the FDA for pregnant women. Most importantly, this investigation, supported by many troubling personal stories, explores how women can reclaim the childbirth experience for the betterment of themselves and their children."--Jacket.

This book investigates why women choose ‘birth outside the system’ and makes connections between women’s right to choose where they birth and violations of human rights within maternity care systems. Choosing to birth at home can force women out of mainstream maternity care, despite research supporting the safety of this option for low-risk women attended by midwives. When homebirth is not supported as a birthplace option, women will defy mainstream medical advice, and if a midwife is not available, choose either an unregulated careprovider or birth without assistance. This book examines the circumstances and drivers behind why women nevertheless choose homebirth by bringing legal and ethical perspectives together with the latest research on high-risk homebirth (breech and twin births), freebirth, birth with unregulated careproviders and the oppression of midwives who support unorthodox choices. Stories from women who have pursued alternatives in Australia, Europe, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Middle East and India are woven through the research. Insight and practical strategies are shared by doctors, midwives, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists on how to manage the tension between professional obligations and women’s right to bodily autonomy. This book, the first of its kind, is an important contribution to considerations of place of birth and human rights in childbirth.

The World Health Organization is currently promoting a policy of replacing traditional or lay midwives in countries around the world. As part of an effort to record the knowledge of local midwives before it is lost, Midwives and Mothers explores birth, illness, death, and survival on a Guatemalan sugar and coffee plantation, or finca, through the lives of two local midwives, Do�a Maria and her daughter Do�a Siriaca, and the women they have served over a forty-year period. By comparing the practices and beliefs of the mother and daughter, Sheila Cosminsky shows the dynamics of the medicalization process and the contestation between the midwives and biomedical personnel, as the latter try to impose their system as the authoritative one. She discusses how the midwives syncretize, integrate, or reject elements from Mayan, Spanish, and biomedical systems. The midwives' story becomes a lens for understanding the impact of medicalization on people's lives and the ways in which women's bodies have become contested terrain between traditional and contemporary medical practices. Cosminsky also makes recommendations for how ethno-obstetric and biomedical systems may be accommodated, articulated, or integrated. Finally, she places the changes in the birthing system in the larger context of changes in the plantation system, including the elimination of coffee growing, which has made women, traditionally the primary harvesters of coffee beans, more economically dependent on men.

Joints and Connective Tissues - General Practice: The Integrative Approach Series. In order to diagnose and manage the patient presenting with musculoskeletal symptoms, it is important to distinguish whether the pathology is arising primarily in the so-called hard tissues (such as bone) or the soft tissues (such as cartilage, disc, synovium, capsule, muscle, tendon, tendon sheath). It is also important to distinguish between the two most common causes of musculoskeletal symptoms, namely inflammatory and degenerative.

The eBook version of this title gives you access to the complete book content electronically*. Evolve eBooks allows you to quickly search the entire book, make notes, add highlights, and study more efficiently. Buying other Evolve eBooks titles makes your learning experience even better: all of the eBooks will work together on your electronic "bookshelf", so that you can search across your entire library of Midwifery eBooks. *Please note that this version is the eBook only and does not include the printed textbook. Alternatively, you can buy the Text and Evolve eBooks Package (which gives you the printed book plus the eBook). Please scroll down to our Related Titles section to find this title. "I still have the confidence of that whole period. And I think that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Definitely a great sense of triumph really. It's incredible..."Being a midwife today requires not only good clinical skills but also a broad understanding of the social and emotional changes a woman goes through before and after birth. The New Midwifery Second Edition looks at combining scientific knowledge with the more intangible skills needed in sensitive communication to provide the best possible care for the mother and her family."There was a kind of silence in the relationship, a stillness which was very important. And we'd done all the talking in the build up. So the talking was done. I felt confident that she [the midwife] knew where I was coming from and vice versa. It was like we'd done all our dress rehearsal – what if, what if. And on the day there was nothing left to say really. So it just felt very calm, and I think that was the most important thing."The second edition of this celebrated text explores vividly the various skills and approaches that lead to successful midwifery practice and uses care stories to bring these to life.Building on a thorough grounding of theory and research evidence, The New Midwifery will enable all midwives to practise with a more effective range of skills and, as these real-life quotes from mothers bear out, provide unique professional support before, during and after birth."I think we had a really good relationship actually. It was more of a friend relationship, but a friend you could trust in – a professional friend you could rely on." - Provides a refreshingly new approach to key areas of midwifery practice in a way that brings practice to life. - Illustrates and supports the fundamental changes currently taking place in midwifery around the world. - Builds on the most up-to-date, evidence-based research to suggest guidelines for best practices. - Explores the impact of parenthood and offers strategies for effectively supporting individuals during this period of transition. - Includes "care stories" - case studies that highlight positive midwifery care and successful childbirth experiences. - Offers contrasting stories from around the world, illustrating how maternity care in industrialized society differs from that in a non-industrial or third world environment. - Provides up-to-date research and reference material.