The Business of Birth

Louise Marie Roth is Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. She studies gender, organizations, law, and health. Her research examines how organizational cultures, policies, and responses to the law influence justice and quality of life for women. Her first book analyzed gender inequality on Wall Street.

If you want to understand the seemingly incomprehensible mess that is American maternity care -among the most expensive and least safe in the world - read this book. Louise Roth unpacks the legal, medical, technological and social forces that bring us to this intolerable situation. And she helps us, all those who care about birth and life, to understand how we can fix it. -- Barbara Katz Rothman, author of Bun in the Oven: How the Food and Birth Movements Resist Industrialization With multiple kinds of data, detailed analysis, and empathy for patients and providers alike, Louise Roth reveals how birth experiences are powerfully and invisibly structured by legal and institutional forces, rather than by individual choice. By situating pregnancy and birth management within broader legal, medical, and cultural systems, The Business of Birth offers concrete solutions that hold the promise of making reproductive justice a reality for everyone. -- Jennifer Reich, author of Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines In The Business of Birth, Louise Marie Roth confirms the unpleasant truth that a pregnant woman's race, class, and education affect the quality of maternity care she receives, contributing to the appalling racial and class disparities in infant and maternal mortality in the United States today. This is a book that everyone concerned with women's health will want to read. -- Linda C. Fentiman, author of Blaming Mothers: American Law and the Risks to Children's Health