Throughout my career, I have focused on emerging technologies and roles in maternity care, and women’s experiences with these. My dissertation, Doula Care: The (Re)-Emergence of Woman-Supported Childbirth in the United States, was the first social science investigation of this role and its practitioners. My ethnographic observations and interviews with doulas and founding organizational members revealed core contradictions in the doula role as it has emerged to mediate the increased use of pharmaceuticals, technology and surgery in U.S. obstetrics.
I am currently collaborating with Elayne Clift on a book project, combining my analysis of the doula role with selected narratives from doulas and women who had doulas at their births. This project, Birth Ambassadors: Doulas and the Re-emergence of Woman-Supported Childbirth in the United States, is currently under review at a university press.
In addition, I collaborated with medical anthropologist Clarissa Hsu, PhD, on an ethnographic study of childbirth education, funded by Lamaze International, from 2004-07. See Contemporary Dilemmas in American Childbirth Education: Findings From a Comparative Ethnographic Study in the Fall 2007 issue of the Journal of Perinatal Education 16(4), 25–37, doi: 10.1624/105812407X245614.
Contact me: christine (at) christinemorton (dot) com for additional information about my work.
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