Reproductive agency, medicine and the state : cultural transformations in childbearing / edited by Maya Unnithan-Kumar.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Attitudes to genetic diagnosis and to the use of medical technologies in pregnancy: some British Pakistani perspectives / Alison Shaw -- Localising a brave new world: new reproductive technologies and the politics of fertility in contemporary Sri Lanka / Bob Simpson -- Conception technologies, local healers and negotiations around childbearing in Rajasthan / Maya Unnithan-Kumar -- Programmes of gamete donation: strategies in (private) clinics of assisted conception / Monica M.E. Bonaccorse -- Women, doctors and pain / William Stones -- Labour, privatisation, and class: middle-class women's experience of changing hospital births in Calcutta / Henrike Donner -- In search of closure for Quinacrine: science and politics in contexts of uncertainty and inequality / Asha George -- 'She has a tender body': postpartum morbidity and care during Bananthana in rural South India / Asha Kilaru [and others] -- 'And never the twain shall meet': reproductive health policies in the Islamic republic of Iran / Soraya Tremayne -- Women in fertility studies and In Situ / Tulsi Patel -- Heteronomous women? hidden assumptions in the demography of women / Sumi Madhok.

Recent years have seen many changes in human reproduction resulting from state and medical interventions in childbearing processes. Based on empirical work in a variety of societies and countries, this volume considers the relationship between reproductive processes (of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period) on the one hand and attitudes, medical technologies and state health policies in diverse cultural contexts on the other. [from publisher's advertisement].