Sustainable Birth in Disruptive Times

Kim Gutschow , is a Lecturer in Anthropology and Religion, and affiliated with Public Health, Asian Studies, and Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where she has taught since 2003. She has published over 35 articles on maternity care, maternal death reviews, and counting maternal mortality in India and the United States; as well as on the gender dynamics and discourses of Buddhist monasticism, Tibetan medicine, community-based irrigation, and land use practices in the Indian Himalayas. She is the author of Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Indian Himalaya (Harvard 2004), which won the Sharon Stephens Prize for best ethnography (2005). Her collaborative research projects with Ladakhi teams have received several awards including a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2009) for Birth: From Home to Hospital and Back Home Again ; a National Geographic Explorer Award (2019) for Climate Change Adaptation: By the People, For the People , as well as funding from the Harvard Society of Fellows (1997-2000) and the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). She raised $100,000 to fund appropriate technology, passive solar design, and other projects with and for Zangskari women via the Gaden Relief Zanskar Project between 1991-2015. Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD , is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, and Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. She is a well-known medical anthropologist, midwifery and doula advocate, and international speaker and researcher in transformational models in maternity care. Robbie is author of over 80 journal articles and 24 encyclopedia entries, and of Birth as an American Rite of Passage (1992, 2003) and Ways of Knowing about Birth: Mothers, Midwives, Medicine, and Birth Activism (2018); coauthor of The Power of Ritual (2016); and lead editor of 13 collections, including the award-winning volumes Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge (1997) and Cyborg Babies (1998); and the "seminal" Birth Models That Work (2009). Her most recent collection, co-edited with Melissa Cheyney, is Birth in Eight Cultures (2019). Birthing Models on the Human Rights Frontier: Speaking Truth to Power , co-edited with Betty-Anne Daviss, is in press. As a Board Member of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization, Robbie served as Lead Editor for the International Childbirth Initiative (ICI): 12 Steps to Safe and Respectful MotherBaby-Family Maternity Care (a joint IMBCO/FIGO global initiative). She presently serves as Lead Editor for a Routledge series called "Social Science Perspectives on Childbirth and Reproduction," and as Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction. Betty-Anne Daviss, MA, BMJ, RM (Registered Midwife), has served as a midwife for 45 years practicing in various countries on six continents, and as a researcher in the social sciences and clinical epidemiology for over 25 years. She is an Adjunct Professor in Gender and Women's Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, in Ontario, Canada, and has taught since the 1980s on reproductive issues and the politics of gender and health, while working towards midwifery legislation in North America and abroad. She co-authored the large prospective home birth study of Certified Professional Midwives in North America published in the BMJ (2005) that continues to be accessed 500-800 times a month; the World Report on Postpartum Hemorrhage, when she worked for the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) (Lalonde et al 2006), which continues to be used with updates; and was the co-principal investigator and principal writer for the Frankfurt study comparing vaginal breeches born with the mother

Chapter 1. Introduction: Sustainable Birth in Disruptive Times.-  Chapter 2. Sustainable Midwifery.- Chapter 3. Bringing Back Breech by Reframing the Language of Risk.- Chapter 4. From Home to Hospital: Sustainable Transfers of Care in the United States.- Chapter 5. Structures for Sustainable Collaboration Between Midwives and Obstetricians in the Netherlands: The Obstetrics and Midwifery Manual and Perinatal Care Partnerships.- Chapter 6. Re/Envisioning Birth Work: Community-Based Doula Training for Low-Income and Previously Incarcerated Women in the United States.- Chapter 7. Sustainable Metrics: Using Measurement-Based Quality Improvement to Improve Maternity Practice While Avoiding Frustration and Pitfalls.- Chapter 8. Unsustainable Surrogacy Practices: What We Can Learn from a Comparative Assessment.- Chapter 9. Childbirth in Chile: Winds of Change.- Chapter 10. Humanizing Care at the Maternity Hospital Estela de Carlotto in Buenos Aires: Providers Relearning Their Roles.-Chapter 11. Luna Maya Birth Centers in Mexico: A Network for Femifocal Care.- Chapter 12. Reconstructing Referrals: Overcoming Barriers to Quality Obstetric Care for Maya Women in Guatemala Through Care Navigation.- Chapter 13. A Sustainable Model of Assessing Maternal Health Needs and Improving Quality of Care During and After Pregnancy.- Chapter 14. Sustainable Maternal and Newborn Care in India: A Case Study from Ladakh.- Chapter 15. Giving Birth at Home in Resource-Scarce Regions of India:  An Argument for Making the Women-Centric Approach of the Traditional Dais Sustainable.- Chapter 16. It Takes More than a Village: Building a Network of Safety in Nepal's Mountain Communities.- Chapter 17. Tranquil Birth: Revising Risk to Sustain Spontaneous Vaginal.- Chapter 18. Sustainable Birth Care in Disaster Zones and During Pandemics: Low-Tech, Skilled Touch.- Ch 19. Sustainable Newborn Care: Helping Babies Breathe and Essential Newborn.- Chapter 20. Conclusion: Sustainable Maternity Care in Disruptive.