Brought to Bed Childbearing in America, 1750-1950, 30th Anniversary Edition

Based on personal accounts by birthing women and their medical attendants, Brought to Bed reveals how childbirth has changed from colonial times to the late twentieth century. Judith Walzer Leavitt's classic study focuses on the traditional woman-centered home-birthing practices, their replacement by male doctors, and the movement from the home to the hospital. Leavitt narrates the shifting power of childbearing women and their physicians, as well as changes in infant and maternal mortality. She also discusses how women have attempted to retrieve some of the traditional women--and family--centered aspects of childbirth. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new preface that reviews the burgeoning writing on the history of childbirth since its publication.

Judith Walzer Leavitt is Rupple Bascom and Ruth Bleier Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health, and Make Room For Daddy: The Journey from the Waiting Room to the Delivery Room.