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Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2019

Lauren A. Diamond-Brown

Unassisted childbirth, also known as “freebirth,” is when a person intentionally gives birth at home with no professional birth attendant. The limited research on unassisted birth

Abstract

Unassisted childbirth, also known as “freebirth,” is when a person intentionally gives birth at home with no professional birth attendant. The limited research on unassisted birth in the United States focuses on women’s reasons for making this choice. Studies suggest women are committed to birthing without a professional and that this choice is rooted in religious or natural-family belief systems. These studies do not adequately account for the ways a framework of “choice” obscures the role structural barriers play in decision-making processes. International research on unassisted childbirth finds that it is not always a first choice and may be a last resort for women who have had negative experiences with maternity care. More research on unassisted birth in the United States is needed to better understand if people face similar structural barriers. In this paper I examine how structural limitations of the US healthcare system intersect with values in decision-making processes about childbirth. Drawing on in-depth interviews with nine women who gave birth unassisted in the United States, I examine the women’s shared ideological commitments, negative experiences with health care, and barriers faced seeking care. I discovered that unassisted birth may not be a first, or even positive choice, but rather a compromise informed by ideological commitments and constrained choices. Structural barriers in the US healthcare system prevented women from having a professional birth attendant who they felt was acceptable, available, and accessible. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for debates about birth justice and health policy.

Details

Reproduction, Health, and Medicine
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-172-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 September 2017

Monica R. McLemore and Zakeya Warner Hand

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for novel and innovative reentry programs focused on women of color and to describe policy recommendations that are necessary to…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for novel and innovative reentry programs focused on women of color and to describe policy recommendations that are necessary to support the sustainability of these programs and in turn the success of the women who participate in them.

Design/methodology/approach

A review and analysis of the literature that described job-training opportunities specifically targeted to women exiting jail and the impact on recidivism provided limited information. The authors developed, implemented, and evaluated doula training program for low-income and women of color to determine if birth work could provide stable income and decrease recidivism.

Findings

Training low-income formerly incarcerated women to become birth doulas is an innovative strategy to solve employment barriers faced by women reentering communities from jail. Realigning women within communities via birth support to other women also provides culturally relevant and appropriate members of the healthcare team for traditionally vulnerable populations. Doulas are important members of the healthcare workforce and can improve birth outcomes. The authors’ work testing doula training, as a reentry vocational program has been successful in producing 16 culturally relevant and appropriate doulas of color that experienced no re-arrests and to date no program participant has experienced recidivism.

Originality/value

To be successful, the intersections of race, gender, and poverty, for women of color should be considered in the design of reentry programs for individuals exiting jail. The authors’ work provided formerly incarcerated and low-income women of color with vocational skills that provide consistent income, serve as a gateway to the health professions, and increase the numbers of well-trained people of color who serve as providers of care.

Details

International Journal of Prisoner Health, vol. 13 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1744-9200

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Reproduction, Health, and Medicine
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-172-4

Article
Publication date: 3 November 2021

Susan Rayment-McHugh, Dimity Adams and Nadine McKillop

Intervention for young people engaging in harmful sexual behaviour has been largely based on individual-level conceptualisations and assessment. Prevention efforts reflect this…

Abstract

Purpose

Intervention for young people engaging in harmful sexual behaviour has been largely based on individual-level conceptualisations and assessment. Prevention efforts reflect this individual-focus, relying primarily on offender management and justice responses. Risk of sexual abuse, however, is often situated outside the individual, within the broader social and physical systems in which young people are embedded. Lack of recognition for how contextual factors contribute to sexual abuse narrows the focus of prevention and intervention, overlooking the very contexts and circumstances in which this behaviour occurs. This paper aims to demonstrate the utility of contextual practice with young people who sexually harm, and implications for prevention.

Design/methodology/approach

An Australian case study is used to showcase the “why”, “what” and “how” of a contextual approach to assessment and treatment of young people who sexually harm.

Findings

Contextual approaches extend the focus of clinical practice beyond the individual to include the physical and social contexts that may contribute to risk. Adding a contextual lens broadens the approach to assessment, affording new opportunities to tailor the intervention to local contextual dynamics, and identifying new targets for primary and secondary prevention.

Originality/value

This is the first known attempt to extend understanding of contextual approaches to clinical assessment and intervention for young people who sexually harm, using a case study method. The case study showcases contextual assessment and intervention processes that challenge traditional thinking and practice in this field. Importantly, the case study also reveals new opportunities for primary and secondary prevention that emerge through this contextual clinical practice.

Details

Journal of Children's Services, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-6660

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2019

Alexis M. Kenney

As biomedicine becomes increasingly enmeshed in modern life, biomedicalization processes have implications for reproductive policy, including abortion policy. Informed consent…

Abstract

As biomedicine becomes increasingly enmeshed in modern life, biomedicalization processes have implications for reproductive policy, including abortion policy. Informed consent provisions have been a prominent trend in state-level abortion lawmaking in the United States in recent years. Modeled on the practice of securing informed consent for medical procedures, informed consent provisions stipulate the information a person must receive before they can consent to an abortion. Informed consent provisions purportedly require that this information be objective, scientifically accurate, and non-judgmental. Through an analysis of informed consent provisions in Texas abortion legislation from 1993 to 2015, this chapter explores how such provisions employ medical and biomedical tropes to frame regulations that restrict access to abortion care as ostensibly protecting women’s health and safety. I find that informed consent legislation in Texas selectively borrows from medical and biomedical lexicons, cites strategic empirical evidence, and co-opts medical techniques and experts in ways that encumber abortion access.

Details

Reproduction, Health, and Medicine
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-172-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 June 2020

Samuel Tromans, Verity Chester, Eli Gemegah, Kristian Roberts, Zoe Morgan, Guiqing Lily Yao and Traolach Brugha

The purpose of the paper is to review autism identification across different ethnic groups. Diagnosis of autism may be missed or delayed in certain ethnic groups, leading to such…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to review autism identification across different ethnic groups. Diagnosis of autism may be missed or delayed in certain ethnic groups, leading to such groups being underserved relative to their needs. This can result in members of such groups being effectively denied essential avenues of support that can substantially improve the quality of life of autistic persons as well as those whom care for them.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature search for articles reporting autism identification across ethnic groups was undertaken. Data are compared, with a special focus on possible explanations for any inter-group variation.

Findings

Autism identification appears to be generally lower in minority ethnic groups relative to the majority population. Individuals presenting with autism from minority groups appear to have more severe forms of the condition.

Originality/value

There are a multitude of potential explanations for inter-ethnicity variation in autism identification, including health care-related factors, broader environmental influences, cultural factors and possible biological differences. Implications for clinical practice and public health include a need to look at means of ensuring equitable access to relevant autism diagnostic and support services across ethnic groups. Further work is required to better understand the belief systems that operate within specific ethnic groups, how this may potentially impact upon autism identification and measures to address the concerns of such groups.

Details

Advances in Autism, vol. 7 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2056-3868

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 January 2014

Sagit Mor

This article examines the dialectics of wrongful life and wrongful birth claims in Israel from 1986 until 2012. In May 2012 Israeli Supreme Court declared that while wrongful birth

Abstract

This article examines the dialectics of wrongful life and wrongful birth claims in Israel from 1986 until 2012. In May 2012 Israeli Supreme Court declared that while wrongful birth claims were still permitted, wrongful life claims were no longer accepted in a court of law. The article examines the conditions that allowed for and supported the expansion of wrongful life/birth claims until 2012. The article identifies two parallel dynamics of expansion: a broadening of the scope of negligent conduct and a view of milder forms of disabilities as damage that merits compensation. The article further suggests four explanations for such doctrinal evolution, two of which emanate from doctrinal ambiguities and the other two are rooted in social factors that have shaped the meaning of disability as a tragedy and state of inferiority. While recent developments seem promising, the article concludes with a word of caution. Such changes may reproduce past injustices mainly because the compensation mechanism has remained an individual-torts based one, which may run counter to the broader struggle for social change for disabled people.

Details

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-785-6

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the failed mother
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-621-1

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2019

Cara Delay and Beth Sundstrom

This chapter examines symphysiotomy in twentieth-century Ireland as one example of a systematized obstetric violence that has characterized Ireland’s modern history. Expanding…

Abstract

This chapter examines symphysiotomy in twentieth-century Ireland as one example of a systematized obstetric violence that has characterized Ireland’s modern history. Expanding scholarly interpretations of state- and Church-inflicted abuse of women in the twentieth century, this analysis establishes the medical profession as a central actor alongside the twentieth-century state-Church coalition that regulated women’s reproductive lives and engaged in systematic repression. This chapter recognizes that Ireland’s history of reproductive abuse and coercion did not just involve contraception or abortion but also labor and birth experiences. In addition, it offers a more complete and complex interpretation of obstetric violence by highlighting the experiences of married women with wanted pregnancies; almost all research to date focuses on the experiences of unmarried pregnant women or unwanted pregnancies. This examination of symphysiotomy and obstetric violence in Ireland illuminates the ways in which religious, national, and medical power has been mapped on women’s reproductive bodies, particularly in the decades after independence in 1922. It also makes essential links between Ireland’s past and present, demonstrating that a careful analysis of the history of obstetric violence and the religious underpinnings of it are essential in understanding Ireland today. With this research, we also place symphysiotomy within the context of the global reproductive justice movement, asking how a reproductive justice framework – one that links reproductive rights with social justice – can help us interpret obstetric violence and address the wounds of Ireland’s past.

Details

Reproduction, Health, and Medicine
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-172-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 April 2016

Thomas M. Keck and Kevin J. McMahon

From one angle, abortion law appears to confirm the regime politics account of the Supreme Court; after all, the Reagan/Bush coalition succeeded in significantly curtailing the…

Abstract

From one angle, abortion law appears to confirm the regime politics account of the Supreme Court; after all, the Reagan/Bush coalition succeeded in significantly curtailing the constitutional protection of abortion rights. From another angle, however, it is puzzling that the Reagan/Bush Court repeatedly refused to overturn Roe v. Wade. We argue that time and again electoral considerations led Republican elites to back away from a forceful assertion of their agenda for constitutional change. As a result, the justices generally acted within the range of possibilities acceptable to the governing regime but still typically had multiple doctrinal options from which to choose.

Details

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-076-3

Keywords

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