Birth
The Surprising History of How We Are Born
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Narrated by:
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Angela Starling
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By:
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Tina Cassidy
About this listen
Published to widespread acclaim, Tina Cassidy's smart, engaging book is the first world history of childbirth in 50 years. From evolution to the epidural and beyond, Tina Cassidy presents an intelligent, enlightening, and impeccably researched cultural history of how and why we're born the way we are. Women have been giving birth for millennia, but that's about the only constant in the final stage of the great process that is human reproduction. Why is it that every culture and generation seems to have its own ideas about the best way to give birth? Cassidy explores the physical, anthropological, political, and religious factors that have and will continue to influence how women bring new life into the world.
©2006 Tina Cassidy. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
-
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In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
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Healing Hearts
- A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon
- By: Kathy Magliato
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of fewer than a dozen female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group - those surgeons who perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who also calls herself a wife and mother.
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Healing Hearts
- By Jean on 01-14-12
By: Kathy Magliato
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King of Hearts
- The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery
- By: G. Wayne Miller
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.
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Loved every minute
- By Brian on 02-05-08
By: G. Wayne Miller
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Ungovernable
- The Victorian Parent's Guide to Raising Flawless Children
- By: Therese Oneill
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg, Betsy Foldes Meiman
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Feminist historian Therese Oneill is back, to educate you on what to expect when you're expecting...a Victorian baby! In Ungovernable, Oneill conducts an unforgettable tour through the backward, pseudoscientific, downright bizarre parenting fashions of the Victorians.
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Unexpected and Hilarious
- By M. Huber on 05-21-19
By: Therese Oneill
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Vagina Obscura
- An Anatomical Voyage
- By: Rachel E. Gross
- Narrated by: Siho Ellsmore
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means “parts for which you should be ashamed”. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a man. Named, claimed, and shamed: Welcome to the story of the female body, as penned by men. Today, a new generation of (mostly) women scientists is finally redrawing the map. With modern tools and fresh perspectives, they’re looking at the organs traditionally bound up in reproduction—the uterus, ovaries, vagina—and seeing within them a new biology of change and resilience.
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poor narration
- By Jane on 08-23-22
By: Rachel E. Gross
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Falling into the Fire
- A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis
- By: Christine Montross
- Narrated by: Christine Montross
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Falling into the Fire is psychiatrist Christine Montross's thoughtful investigation of the gripping patient encounters that have challenged and deepened her practice. Beautifully written, deeply felt, Falling into the Fire brings us inside the doctor’s mind, illuminating the grave human costs of mental illness as well as the challenges of diagnosis and treatment. At once rigorous and meditative, Falling into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry, allowing the reader to witness the humanity of the practice and the enduring mysteries of the mind.
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Buy this book! and READ it
- By joyce on 08-15-13
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth
- And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Morris
- Narrated by: Thomas Morris, Ruper Farley
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the 19th century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled.
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Boring Toilet Humor
- By Nemo on 01-30-20
By: Thomas Morris
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Push Back
- Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting
- By: Amy Tuteur
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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A Harvard-trained obstetrician-gynecologist, a prominent blogger, and author of the classic How Your Baby Is Born delivers a timely, important, and sure to be headline-making exposé that shines a light on the natural parenting movement and the multimillion-dollar industry behind it.
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A perspective all birth workers should examine
- By HeatherW on 10-25-19
By: Amy Tuteur
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Bellevue
- Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
- By: David Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 12-14-16
By: David Oshinsky
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Knocking on Heaven's Door
- The Path to a Better Way of Death
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.
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A better way to narrate a book about death?
- By MAUREEN on 10-21-13
By: Katy Butler
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Confessions of a Surgeon
- The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated...Life Behind the O.R. Doors
- By: Paul A. Ruggieri MD
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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As an active surgeon and former department chairman, Dr. Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the OR and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting.
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Enjoyed the anecdotes!
- By suzanne on 07-31-17
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How Doctors Think
- By: Jerome Groopman M.D.
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within 12 seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong: with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make.
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Disappointing
- By Audiophile on 05-13-07
What listeners say about Birth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 07-07-24
Written so well! Easy to read/listen to.
I love this book. Tina cass keeps the readers interested with facts and history and stories.
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- Kate
- 12-21-21
Wow. That was eye opening.
Having given birth to four children, three in the '80's and one in the '90's, I'm an "experienced" mother. But I did not know about the history of birth experiences in our country or around the world. So I found this very informative and intriguing to hear. And sad, too, to learn about the horrors of so many women's experience. I enjoyed the book very much though and would recommend.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-08-20
Eye opening
Wow I admire the candor and details that the author shared to enlighten us all about the history of birth. It has shaped my perspective. I feel equally enraged at how the practice has been shaped, and yet grateful for our modern medical options. Thank you!
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- Anonymous User
- 07-21-21
great read
enjoyed listening to this book. the narration was spectacular! I also appreciate the storyline and historical facts.
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- BRADY D. RYAN
- 12-30-22
Doula approved
Informative, timely, and entertaining, delivering a history of birth across cultures and eras. A must read for any birthworker!
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- RT
- 02-24-16
important historical work, fascinating and fun
really interesting and informative historical work. it was well researched and written, and I thought also it did especially well at being non-biased regarding birth choices and care providers, when all was said and done.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-12-16
Renewed appreciation for everyday miracles
Pretty much anyone contemplating birth needs to read or listen to this book. There are some dicey parts you might skip if you don't have the stomach for it but this is, after all, a comprehensive treatment from the lilting to the barbaric. But what really shines there is the miraculous nature of, well, nurture. That and the fleeting fads that come with every cultural shift to the next best thing. If nothing else every father to be ought to read the sections that cover doulas to fathers about 3/4 into the book. It's really helpful.
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- Trish
- 08-02-18
Very Informative
The author presents an enormous, multi fasceted topic in a well organized consice manner. The research, statistics, anecdotes flow smoothly in this comprehensive compilation The narration is well done
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- Jeawls
- 08-22-16
Great insight into the history of birth
This book is not a epic adventure but a deep dive into the history of birth. It reads more like a textbook. There is a wealth of knowledge and surprising history in this book.
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- Brooke N Mike
- 02-05-19
We've come so far, but not far enough
As a birth worker, I have studied the history of birth and still found the book fascinating. I'm still just amazed at what ai jotted down in my brain years ago, "You just CANNOT show up for your birth" and this really just drives it home for me. If you are in a role to support your daughter, sister, cousin, friend, hired to support a birthing person, you MUST read/listen in to this book. The hard part is really just how far we've gotten away from trusting our bodies to birth as they should and the results of this.
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1 person found this helpful