Cognition, Risk, and Responsibility in Obstetrics

Anthropological Analyses and Critiques of Obstetricians’ Practices

Robbie Davis-Floyd, Ashish Premkumar, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Ashish Premkumar

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781800738331
  9781800738317
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781800738324
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gynecology, Obstetrics & Midwifery
• Index: Social Sciences

Volume 2 in this landmark 3-volume series The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession looks at cognition, risk, and responsibility in obstetrics.

This volume contains social science analyses of Swiss, Chilean, Mexican, US, Greek, and Irish obstetrics and obstetricians, particularly around their reasons for the overuse of cesareans; a chapter on "4 Stages of Cognition" and a condition called "Substage," which describes how these concepts apply to obstetricians; and a chapter on why obstetricians fear home birth.

This book is a must-read for students, social scientists, and all maternity care practitioners who seek to understand obstetricians' differing ideologies and motives for practicing as they do.

An excerpt from Vania Smith-Oka and Lydia Dixon's chapter:
For systemic changes to occur, we must understand doctors' decision-making rationales and take their fear-based perspectives about risk and responsibility into account, while also paying attention to the concerns raised by scholars and activists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. An Overview of This Volume and of Significant Concepts Used
• Chapter 1. Open and Closed Knowledge Systems, the 4 Stages of Cognition, and the Obstetric Management of Birth
• Chapter 2. From “Mastership” to Active Management of Labor: The Culture of Irish Obstetrics and Obstetricians
• Chapter 3. Becoming an Obstetrician in Greece: Medical Training, Informal Scripts, and the Routinization of Cesarean Birth
• Chapter 4. “Physiologic Birth Implies Economic Damage”: Financial Incentives for the Performance of Cesareans in Chile
• Chapter 5. The Introduction of the “Gentle Cesarean” in Swiss Hospitals: A Conversation with One of Its Pioneers
• Chapter 6. Scoring Women, Calculating Risk: The MFMU VBAC Calculator
• Chapter 7. On Risk and Responsibility: Contextualizing Practice among Mexican Obstetricians
• Chapter 8. Crossing Bodily, Social, and Intimate Boundaries: How Class, Ethnic, and Gender Differences Are Reproduced in Medical Training in Mexico
• Chapter 9. The Limitations of Understanding Structural Inequality: Obstetricians’ Accounts of Caring for Substance-Using Patients in the United States
• Chapter 10. Contraceptive Provision by Obstetricians/Gynecologists in the United States: Biases, Misperceptions, and Barriers to an Essential Reproductive Health Service
• Chapter 11. Cognition, Risk, and Responsibility: Home Birth and Why Obstetricians Fear It
• Conclusions. Concepts, Conceptual Frameworks, and Lessons Learned
• Index