Introduction to the "Disease"

The notion of pregnancy and childbirth as diseases begins with medicalization. Catherine Riessman’s article, “Women and Medicalization: A New Perspective,” documents a history of the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, geographically focused in the United States.

Prior to the entrance of obstetricians into the realm of pregnancy and childbirth midwives attended to births. These were women who, “assisted by a network of female relatives and friends, provided emotional support and practical assistance to the pregnant woman both during the actual birth and in the weeks that followed” (Riessman 51). Beginning in the early 20th century the field of obstetrics arose as an option for monitoring pregnancy and birthing. “Obstetricians were successful in persuading both their physician colleagues and the general public of the “fallacy of normal pregnancy,” and therefore of the need for a “science” of obstetrical practice” (51). This move from midwives to obstetricians was a process intertwined with race, class, and gender.

The work to demonize midwives was a racial and class project, in that “obstetricians were from the dominant class, whereas midwives were mostly immigrant and Black women” (51). Note that Riessman herself doesn’t have a clear notion of whether to mention race or class—she conveniently relates the obstetricians with a higher class (while not mentioning Whiteness) and the midwives with race and ethnicity (while not mentioning poverty). Riessman’s article continues to lack in a radically critical raced or classed analysis of the history of the medicalization of pregnancy and birthing, but her conflation of different types of subjugated positionalities shows how complicatedly embedded medicalization is in all arenas of life.

works cited: Riessman, Catherine Kohler. "Women and Medicalization: A New Perspective." Politics of Women's Bodies. Ed. Rose Weitz. Oxford University Press, 2003. 46-63.