This book illustrates the continuing paradoxes as well as the new challenges linked to childbirth in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. It brings together anthropologists, historians, and sociologists who reflect on the implications of these new schemes for women's own experiences.

Roger Jeffery is Professor, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh.
Clémence Jullien is CNRS research fellow, Center for South Asian Studies (CEIAS), Paris.

• Dedication


• Preface


• Table for content


• List of tables


• List of acronyms


• Section 1: Historical perspective


• 01. "Changing childbirth in 21st Century South Asia^" (Clémence Jullien and Roger Jeffery)


• 02. "Colonial Legacies and Maternal Health in South Asia" (Samiksha Sehrawat)


• Section 2: Continuing relevance of 'traditional birth attendants'


• 03. "Forms and ethics of Baloch midwifery contesting the violations of biomedicalized childbirth in Pakistan (Fouzieyha Towghi)


• 04. "Training birth attendants in India. Authoritative knowledge social forms, practices and paradoxe


• (Pascale Hancart Petitet)


• Section 3: Contested categories


• 05. Since it's a pleasure to save somebody's life, I do this.' Midwifery and safe motherhood practices in urban India


• (Helen Vallianatos)


• 06."Childbirth in transit. The changing nature of motherhood in Maharashtra


• (Deepra Dandekar)


• Section 4: Contemporary birth attendants


• 07. Outsiders in the Village: Class, Space, and the Shortage of Women Doctors in Rural Rajasthan, India (Jocelyn Killmer)


• 08. Care's profit: precarity and professionalisation of health workers in private maternal clinics in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, India(Isabelle Lange, Sunita Bhadauria, Sunita Singh and Loveday Penn-Kekana)


• 09. Protocols and Setups: producing professional obstetrical knowledge in the periphery of Mumbai, India(Neha Madhiwalla)


• Section 5: Institutionalisation of childbirth


• 10. Son preference in India: stigmatisation and surveillance in maternity wards in Jaipur, Rajasthan (Clémence Jullien)


• 11. Politics of childbirth in Nepal: the case of the maternal mortality ratio" (Jeevan R. Sharma and Radha Adhikari)


• Section 6: New technologies


• 12. Discourses of childlessness in Bangladesh: power and agency (Taslima Mirza)


• 13. Digitalizing community health: mobile phones to improve maternal health in rural India (Marine al Dahdah and Alok Kumar)


• Glossary


• Index