From Home to Hospital

Employing seventy-eight in-depth interviews with Italian and Jewish American women, this study presents the subjective voices of women caught up in an important social change: the pre-1940 transformation of childbirth. Italian women were more varied in their choices--some were more likely to prefer home birth with a midwife, while others used a hospital clinic or private physician. A significant number moved from home to hospital over their birth careers, while nearly all Jewish women selected physician-assisted hospital birth. These differences are explained by looking at the structure and context of women's family and friendship networks and their personal links to varying childbirth caretakers.