The Corruption of Obstetrics

Within the last two centuries, birth has undergone a major transformation as doctors took over and relocated childbirth from the home to the hospital, leaving the reproductive female body and female healers devalued and disempowered. Advancements in medical science have played a fundamental role in this transformation. As birth has become more and more medicalized, women seem to have lost their agency and believe the only place to have a successful birth is in a hospital. Reproductive technologies have certainly had beneficial effects, but they have also turned the mother into an extension of obstetric machines, communicating a power hierarchy that reinforces patriarchal control over female bodies. This hierarchy has had long-term repercussions for reproductive bodies, but it is largely concealed. I argue that the transition of birth from the home to the hospital is part of a systematic deprivation aimed at maintaining male supremacy through the corruption of obstetrics.