Book Reviews
The books explored here challenge the mainstream understanding of pregnancy and birth and contribute to wider debates around maternity care and pregnancy rights.
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Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the Failed Mother
This is a really unique feminist book written by Dr. Emma Milne. It explores legal cases in which women have been convicted of killing their babies.
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Birthing Outside the System: The Canary in the Coal Mine
This book argues for radical maternity improvement and discusses issues such as obstetric violence and freebirth. It draws on perspectives from a range of international authors.
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Unassisted Childbirth
This text is one of the original books on freebirth, written by the US based author Laura Kaplan Shanley.
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A Social History of Maternity and Childbirth: Key themes in maternity care
This review explores a scholarly text from an author who is both a midwife and a historian. It is a fascinating insight into how maternity care developed in England from informal neighbourly support, to a highly medicalised system.