These are well written articles that are available online:
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
Birth and History by Deborah Gorham
Birth, Obstetrics and Human Evolution by Karen Rosenberg and Wenda Trevathan
I still have a lot to read about childbirth it will be an ongoing reading project but I don't think what I am looking for exists. We live in a world where the gory, the horrific, the shocking, the tragic, the heavy birth, the complications, the death, the bad news...this is what sells books, this what keeps people reading...not the quiet roll call of "normal labor, healthy baby, healthy mother". Up until the immmediate past most women were accomplished amateur midwives by the time they were of middle age--they quietly sat with their fellow women and did the tasks that needed done. Without fuss or bother. The quiet completely invisible history of childbirth for billions of women from evolution forward. BUT they did not write the books--MEN wrote the books. The victorious version of history.
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