Childbirth

“Women’s ability to control confinement practices for most of American history . . . is unique in the annals of relationships between women and medicine. . . . women in the act of childbirth did not feel or act dependent. They negotiated procedures with their medical attendants from a position of strength originating in their historic dominance over confinement room practices. . . . Although physicians acquired theoretical knowledge about parturition quite early in the profession’s history, the male practitioners did not themselves possess the experiential secrets of the birth room” (Leavitt, 209). . . . until the twentieth century, women were able to keep a strong element of decision-making in their own hands. They called in the experts to perform needed interventions, but they decided themselves which procedures were acceptable. Childbirth remained women’s business as long as it remained in women’s homes (210).