Blessed Events: Religion and Home Birth in America

In this provocative and engagingly written ethnography, Klassen asks ""not how religious traditions have ritualized birth... but how birthing women use religion to make sense of their births, and how in turn they draw on birth to make meaning in their lives."" Klassen interviewed 45 women from a variety of religious traditions, including Old Order Amish, Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians, as well as those who subscribe to New Age or Goddess spirituality. All of these women chose to give birth at home, sometimes defying the law. Klassen's ""insistence on attending to the religious dimensions of birth"" offers an important complement to other social studies on childbirth in America. (Nov.)