- Volume 67 (2022)
- Vol. 67 (2022)
- >
- Issue 4
- No. 4
- >
- Pages 429 - 435
- pp. 429 - 435
Slow Birth in Slow Times
Pages 429 - 435
DOI https://doi.org/10.33675/AMST/2022/4/5
open-access
This publication is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivatives 4.0.
This article examines how ideas of time and temporality were rewritten during the pandemic, particularly during 2020 when “stay at home” orders and social distancing mandates seemed to bring ordinary life to a halt, or at least to a slowing down. I argue that, in this moment of slow time, there came a new visibility of slow birth practices, ones that challenge the logics of medical capitalism and its insistence on linear progress through birthing stages or medical intervention (namely C-section) to “achieve” healthy birth.
1 Abelson, Reed. “I Just Cry All the Time: Non-Covid Patients Despair Over Delayed Care.” New York Times. New York Times, 22 Sept. 2021. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/health/covid-hospitals-elective-surgeries.html.
2 ---. “Advanced Cancers Are Emerging, Doctors Warn, Citing Pandemic Drop in Screenings.” New York Times. New York Times, 17 Mar. 2021. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/health/cancer-screenings-decline-breast-colon.html.
3 Bosman, Julie, and Sophie Kasakove. “States Close Mass Test and Vaccine Sites, but Virus May Swell Anew.” New York Times. New York Times, 30 Mar. 2022. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/us/covid-vaccine-testing-states.html.
4 Bridges, Khiara. Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization. Berkeley: U of California P, 2011. Print.
5 Caron, Christina, and Katie Van Syckle. “Some Pregnant Women in New York City Will Have to Deliver Babies Alone.” New York Times. New York Times, 24 Mar. 2020. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/parenting/coronavirus-labor-birth.html.
6 Davis, Dána-Ain. Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth. New York: NYU Press, 2019. Print.
7 Fazio, Marie. “How Mask Guidelines Have Evolved.” New York Times. New York Times, 27 Apr. 2021. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/science/face-mask-guidelines-timeline.html.
8 Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko de. “Pregnant and Scared of ‘Covid Hospitals,’ They’re Giving Birth at Home.” New York Times. New York Times, 21 Apr. 2020. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/nyregion/coronavirus-home-births.html.
9 Goldberg, Emma. “Working 9 to 2, and Again After Dinner.” New York Times. New York Times, 29 Apr. 2022. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/business/working-9-to-2-and-again-after-dinner.html.
10 Heisler, Todd, and David Gonzalez. “These 115 Workers Helped Keep New York Alive in Its Darkest Months.” New York Times. New York Times, 20 July 2021. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/20/nyregion/ny-service-workers-covid.html.
11 Lukpat, Alyssa. “Fauci Clarifies that the Pandemic Isn’t over, after Saying the U.S. Is out of the ‘Pandemic Phase.’” New York Times. New York Times, 27 Apr. 2022. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/27/world/covid-19-mandates-vaccine-cases?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes-though-the-virus-persists-fauci-says-the-us-right-now-is-out-of-the-pandemic-phase.
12 McClelland, W. Spencer. “Don’t Be Afraid of Giving Birth in a New York Hospital.” New York Times. New York Times, 28 Apr. 2020. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/opinion/coronavirus-birth-nyc-hospitals.html.
13 Nash, Jennifer C. Birthing Black Mothers. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2021. Print.
14 Nash, Jennifer C., and Samantha Pinto, eds. “2020 Keywords Symposium.” Theory & Event 25.1 (2022). Print.
15 Newman, Andy. “What N. Y. C. Sounds Like Every Night at 7.” New York Times. New York Times, 10 Apr. 2020. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/nyregion/nyc-7pm-cheer-thank-you-coronavirus.html.
16 Parker-Pope, Tara, Christina Caron, and Mónica Cordero-Sancho. “Why 1,320 Therapists Are Worried about Mental Health in America Right Now.” New York Times. New York Times, 17 Dec. 2021. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/16/well/mental-health-crisis-america-covid.html.
17 Robertson, Campbell, and Robert Gebeloff. “How Millions of Women Became the Most Essential Workers in America.” New York Times. New York Times, 18 Apr. 2020. Web. 15 Aug. 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/us/coronavirus-women-essential-workers.html.
18 Scott, Karen A., and Dána-Ain Davis. “Obstetric Racism: Naming and Identifying a Way out of Black Women’s Adverse Medical Experiences.” American Anthropologist 123.3 (2021): 681-84. Print.
