Birth Narratives

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Birth trauma is recurrent around the globe with dramatic repercussions on mental health issues, with increasing medical costs in our society and a negative effect on childbirth experiences. It is estimated that one in three childbirths is perceived as traumatic, with adverse outcomes on mothers’ mental and physical health (Gamble et al., 2005; Soet et al., 2003; Deforges et al., 2020; COST Action 18211). As usual, society informs literature and vice-versa literature has the potential to bring awareness and change in society and medical practice. In fact, in the last few years, birth narratives have emerged as a new literary genre, and pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum have been investigated from various perspectives and in different languages around the globe. The aim of these stories is multifaced and varied but they all share common goals: breaking uncomfortable taboos and tell personal experiences that had previously been silenced. In the wake of #metoo and other social movements denouncing obstetrical and sexual violence, birthing people have started to tell their experiences to denounce abuse, misinformation, and lack of informed consent. The act of writing helps to process and overcome trauma, inform other people, and provide evidence-based information, or – in the event of positive experiences – inspire readers through empowering birth stories. This one-credit course will address a corpus of contemporary transnational texts published in the last few years by focusing on birth trauma, pregnancy loss, and empowerment through childbirth. By close reading and textual analyses, we will shed new light on how pregnancy, birth, and postpartum shape contemporary literature and investigate how these experiences are conveyed in writing. This course uses the interdisciplinary methods of medical humanities and explores the intersection of medicine, literature, and the social sciences. We will use contemporary sources such as articles, testimonies, and cross-genre texts to investigate how pregnancy, birth, and postpartum are perceived in contemporary society. We will identify key factors for achieving positive and empowering experiences, and pinpoint how trauma could be avoided. We will also determine how birth narratives could bring change in obstetrical care and improve communication between patients and health care providers. Secondary sources introduce students to the fields of narrative medicine (Charon 2001; 2006) and trauma studies (Herman, 1997; Nadal and Calvo, 2014), while selected primary bibliography reveals how birth is experienced in contemporary society. A variety of texts will be discussed by adopting an intersectional approach. Students will analyze excerpts from Angela Garbes’ Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy; Give Birth Like a Feminist by Milli Hill; Rebecca Dekker’s, Babies are Not Pizzas: They’re Born, Not Delivered; Unpregnant. An Essay on the Silent, Secret Grief of Miscarriage by Alexandra Kimball; and Elena Skoko’s Memoirs of a Singing Birth, among others.