Although reproduction including infertility, abortion, childbearing and motherhood is a significant human experience, its social meaning is shaped by the culture in which birthing women live. Reproduction and its management, therefore, occur within the social and cultural context of the event. As such, reproductive beliefs and practices differ across social and cultural settings. This book focuses on reproduction, childbearing and motherhood. In this volume, the authors show that despite the modernisation of the society and advanced medical technology and knowledge in reproduction, traditions continue to exert influence on how the women and their families manage their reproduction, childbearing and motherhood in their societies.

This book unpacks and interrogates dominant constructions of mothering, making use of interdisciplinary, ideological and theoretical perspectives to investigate how new rhetorics of mothering can expand the realm of maternal care-givers beyond the biological definitions of motherhood. This diverse collection is at the cutting-edge of rhetoric, feminism, and motherhood studies, and the chapters challenge the confines of biological parenting as heteronormative within the neo-liberal nuclear family. The contributors examine, how despite the diversity of parental relationships, many are excluded by the understanding of mothers biologically tied to their children. The volume seeks to expose the underpinnings of biological primacy and argues that 21st-century families and familial circumstances are ill-served by biological ideology. Topics include Re-Imagining Queer Black Motherhood, Chicana Feminist approaches to reproductive justice, the commercialization and medicalization of infertility, and ableism and motherhood. This is a unique and fascinating book suitable for students and scholars in gender studies, sexuality studies, communication studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

This four-volume collection of over 140 original chapters covers virtually everything of interest to demographers, sociologists, and others. Over 100 authors present population subjects in ways that provoke thinking and lead to the creation of new perspectives, not just facts and equations to be memorized. The articles follow a theory-methods-applications approach and so offer a kind of "one-stop shop" that is well suited for students and professors who need non-technical summaries, such as political scientists, public affairs specialists, and others. Unlike shorter handbooks, Demography: Analysis and Synthesis offers a long overdue, thorough treatment of the field. Choosing the analytical method that fits the data and the situation requires insights that the authors and editors of Demography: Analysis and Synthesis have explored and developed. This extended examination of demographic tools not only seeks to explain the analytical tools themselves, but also the relationships between general population dynamics and their natural, economic, social, political, and cultural environments. Limiting themselves to human populations only, the authors and editors cover subjects that range from the core building blocks of population change--fertility, mortality, and migration--to the consequences of demographic changes in the biological and health fields, population theories and doctrines, observation systems, and the teaching of demography. The international perspectives brought to these subjects is vital for those who want an unbiased, rounded overview of these complex, multifaceted subjects. Topics to be covered: * Population Dynamics and the Relationship Between Population Growth and Structure * The Determinants of Fertility * The Determinants of Mortality * The Determinants of Migration * Historical and Geographical Determinants of Population * The Effects of Population on Health, Economics, Culture, and the Environment * Population Policies * Data Collection Methods and Teaching about Population Studies * All chapters share a common format * Each chapter features several cross-references to other chapters * Tables, charts, and other non-text features are widespread * Each chapter contains at least 30 bibliographic citations

This book is based on the RCOG Study Group findings on reproductive ageing.

Representing Latina/x Reproductive Decision Making examines representations of reproductive decisions in cultural texts and engages with scholarship on Latina/x representation to interrogate what these representations mean for Latinx popular culture. Melissa Huerta demonstrates that cultural texts ranging from the work of Teatro Luna and television series like Jane the Virgin and Vida to the film Quinceañera and Favianna Rodriguez’s artwork can challenge traditional notions of Latina/x reproductive decisions, pointing to more inclusive understandings of people’s experiences. Huerta argues for the importance of cultural representation in theater, television, film and art and analyzes the roles language and images play in shaping meaning. This book will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, gender studies, Latin American studies, and film and media studies.

Provides a history of reproductive rights, advice for decision-making, and answers to questions.

Surrogate Motherhood: Conception in the Heart is a compelling account written with analytical clarity and remarkable compassion. Helena Ragoné has given long overdue humanity and voice to the actual participants in the surrogate motherhood experience—a heretofore inaccessible population—and the results are fascinating. Anyone interested in fertility, parenting, reproduction, and kinship, or anyone interested in contemporary culture will want to read this book.

"In this book you’ll find a thoughtfully edited chronicle of the unique convergence of genetic, hormonal, social, and environmental forces that influence a woman’s mental health over the course of her life. Both comprehensive and nuanced, Women’s Reproductive Mental Health Across the Lifespan captures the science, clinical observation, and collective wisdom of experts in the field. Professionals and laypersons alike are well-advised to make room on their bookshelves for this one!" - Margaret Howard, Ph.D., Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University; Women & Infants Hospital, Providence RI "This outstanding collection of work is an important, timely, and much needed resource. Dr. Diana Lynn Barnes has been instrumental in bringing attention to the needs of perinatal women for decades. In Women's Reproductive Health Across the Lifespan, she brilliantly unites the medical world of reproductive life events with the psychiatric and psychological world of mental health issues associated with them. Her expertise, combined with contributions by distinguished leaders in the field, create a volume of work that should be studied carefully by every medical and mental health provider who works with women." - Karen Kleiman, MSW, The Postpartum Stress Center, Author of Therapy and the Postpartum Woman "Finally, a book that addresses the entire scope of women’s reproductive mental health spanning the gamut from puberty to menopause. The list of chapter contributors reads like a who’s who of international experts. Unique to this book is its focus on the interaction of genetics, hormonal fluctuations, and the social environment. It is a must addition for the libraries of clinicians and researchers in women’s reproductive mental health". - Cheryl Tatano Beck, DNSc, CNM, FAAN, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, School of Nursing, University of Connecticut Pregnancy and childbirth are generally viewed as joyous occasions. Yet for numerous women, these events instead bring anxiety, depression, and emotional distress. Increased interest in risk reduction and early clinical intervention is bringing reproductive issues to the forefront of women's mental health. The scope of Women's Reproductive Mental Health across the Lifespan begins long before the childbearing years, and continues well after those years have ended. Empirical findings, case examples, and dispatches from emerging areas of the field illuminate representative issues across the continuum of women's lives with the goal of more effective care benefitting women and their families. Chapter authors discuss advances in areas such as fertility treatment and contraception, and present current thinking on the psychological impact of pregnancy loss, menopause, cancer, and other stressors. These expert contributors emphasize the connections between an individual's biology and psychology and cultural expectations in shaping women's mental health, and the balance between a client's unique history and current clinical knowledge clinicians need to address disorders. Included in the coverage: The experience of puberty and emotional wellbeing. Body image issues and eating disorders in the childbearing years. Risk assessment and screening during pregnancy. Normal and pathological postpartum anxiety. Mood disorders and the transition to menopause. The evolution of reproductive psychiatry. A reference with an extended shelf life, Women's Reproductive Mental Health across the Lifespan enhances the work of researchers and practitioners in social work, clinical psychology, and psychiatry, and has potential relevance to all health care professionals.

Lasting from 1979 to 2015, China's One Child Policy is often remembered as one of the most ambitious social engineering projects to date and considered emblematic of global efforts to regulate population growth during the twentieth century. Drawing on a rich combination of archival research and oral history, Sarah Mellors Rodriguez analyses how ordinary people, particularly women, navigated China's shifting fertility policies before and during the One Child Policy era. She examines the implementation and reception of these policies and reveals that they were often contradictory and unevenly enforced, as men and women challenged, reworked, and co-opted state policies to suit their own needs. By situating the One Child Policy within the longer history of birth control and abortion in China, Reproductive Realities in Modern China exposes important historical continuities, such as the enduring reliance on abortion as contraception and the precariousness of state control over reproduction.

The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction is a comprehensive overview of the topics, approaches, and trajectories in the anthropological study of human reproduction. The book brings together work from across the discipline of anthropology, with contributions by established and emerging scholars in archaeological, biological, linguistic, and sociocultural anthropology. Across these areas of research, consideration is given to the contexts, conditions, and contingencies that mark and shape the experiences of reproduction as always gendered, classed, and racialized. Over 39 chapters, a diverse range of international scholars cover topics including: Reproductive governance, stratification, justice, and freedom. Fertility and infertility. Technologies and imaginations. Queering reproduction. Pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive loss. Postpartum and infant care. Care, kinship, and alloparenting. This is a valuable reference for scholars and upper-level students in anthropology and related disciplines associated with reproduction, including sociology, gender studies, science and technology studies, human development and family studies, global health, public health, medicine, medical humanities, and midwifery and nursing.