Womb
The Inside Story of Where We All Began - Winner of the Scottish Book of the Year Award 2023
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
*WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD*
*A FINALIST FOR THE 2024 PEN / EO WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD*
A landmark book on the womb - its history, its present and the possibilities for its future - by the bestselling author of Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story
'A gripping exploration of the science of the uterus, the politics of medicine and the future of reproductive freedom' New Statesman
'Page for page, I may not have ever learned more from a book' Rob Delaney, author of A Heart that Works
'It will change the way you think about bodies forever' Rachel Clarke, author of Dear Life
'Empowerment in book form' Maxine Mei-Fung Chung, author of What Women Want
'A phenomenal book' Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women
The womb is the most miraculous organ in the body - with the power to bring life or cause death; to yield joy or pain - yet most of us know almost nothing about it.
In this book, midwife and bestselling author Leah Hazard sets out on a journey to explore the rich past, complex present and dynamic future of the uterus. She speaks to the Californian doctor who believes women deserve a period-free life; walks in the footsteps of the Scottish woman whose Caesarean section changed childbirth forever; uncovers America's long history of forced and coercive sterilisation; observes uterine transplant surgery in Sweden and takes a very personal dive into the world of 'womb wellness'.
Written with wisdom, warmth and nuance, and combining the author's years of experience as a midwife with medical history, scientific discovery and journalistic inquiry, Womb is an extraordinary exploration of a woefully under-researched and misunderstood organ. Above all, the book reveals that the uterus is more than the sum of its biological parts: it influences all our lives in the twenty-first century, and how we celebrate, medicate and legislate the womb might yet control where we go from here.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Midwife Hazard (Hard Pushed) delivers a bravura cultural history of the uterus and the politics that surround it. Surveying how gendered ideas and expectations impact uterine health, she traces the history of obstetrics and notes a tendency in such terms as "irritable uterus" and "incompetent cervix" to "conflate a woman and her uterus into one troublesome package." Stories of women navigating medical institutions highlight the frequent disregard that patients often encounter from professionals, as when it took weeks for doctors to take a pregnant woman's complaints about debilitating pain seriously enough to perform a scan that revealed a dangerous abnormality. Hazard passionately argues for abortion access, telling of women in Ireland and Poland who died from sepsis because doctors refused to perform the potentially lifesaving procedure. Whether discussing such antique myths as the "wandering womb" or providing a firsthand account of a uterine transplant, Hazard's eye is keen, her range broad, and her tone scrupulously compassionate. Additionally, this benefits from the author's recognition that people relate to their wombs in myriad ways, as exemplified in her interview with a trans man on how his quality of life improved after a hysterectomy. This is essential reading on the "most miraculous and misunderstood organ in the human body."
