To write about mid-twentieth century adoption practices in the United States is to position oneself at the heart of dozens […]
Pregnancy and Miscarriage on Social Media: New Metaphors to Make Miscarriages Easier to Talk About, and Easier to Bear
For someone who has been trying for a pregnancy, it is naturally tempting to want to share the exciting and […]
Motherhood, Undone: A Review of Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women by Lyz Lenz
One evening in early April, after yet another day of sending my toddler daughter to “Frozen school” while I attempted […]
Talking Back to the NIH
In January 2018, Serena Williams went public about how she almost died after giving birth to her daughter. Williams has […]
What to Expect When You’re Expiring: Pregnancy and Death in Seventeenth-Century England
On October 12, 1622, a 26-year-old English woman named Elizabeth Jocelin gave birth to her first child, a baby girl. […]
¡Escúchanos! Immigration and Reproductive Politics
Two years ago, the case of a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant catalyzed the creation of a class action suit from the […]
Training Future Wives and Mothers: Vocational Education and Assimilation at the Stewart Indian School
In 1879, the US government launched an expansive effort to restructure Indigenous lives by enrolling Native American children in off-reservation […]
Where a Pregnancy Can Last for Years: The Remarkable Colonial Reports of Sleeping Pregnancies in the Maghreb
A couple patiently waits for a healthy child after a pregnancy that has lasted several years. A desperate widow claims […]
How Did We Get Here? An Interview with Lara Freidenfelds
Lara Freidenfelds’s new book, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America, explores the history of pregnancy […]
In Vitro Fertilization: From Science Fiction to Reality to History
It was not that long ago that “test tube babies” only existed in science fiction. I remember my shock when, […]