In Birth Con­trol, award-win­ning jour­nal­ist Alli­son Yarrow reveals how women are con­trolled, trau­ma­tized, injured, and even killed because of the tra­di­tion­al­ist prac­tices of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and hos­pi­tals.

Ever since doc­tors stole con­trol of birth from mid­wives in the 19th cen­tu­ry, women have been steam­rolled by a male-dom­i­nat­ed med­ical estab­lish­ment that has every­one con­vinced that birthing bod­ies are inher­ent­ly flawed and that every preg­nan­cy is a cri­sis that it alone can ​“solve.” Com­mon med­ical prac­tices and pro­ce­dures vio­late human rights and the law, yet take place dai­ly. Misog­y­ny and racism, not sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and sup­port, shape the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of America’s four mil­lion annu­al births.

Draw­ing on exten­sive report­ing, expert inter­views, an orig­i­nal sur­vey of 1,300 moth­ers, and her own per­son­al expe­ri­ences, Yarrow doc­u­ments how mod­ern mater­nal health care is insid­i­ous­ly, pur­pose­ful­ly designed to take pow­er from women to the detri­ment of their phys­i­cal and men­tal health — not just dur­ing labor, but for years after. She then shows a bet­ter way, explor­ing solu­tions both cut­ting-edge and ancient to — final­ly — return pow­er and con­trol to birthing people.