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Law, Medicine, Women’s Authority, and the History of Troubled Births: Review of Proving Pregnancy
With Roe v Wade upended, the balance of power and authority among lawmakers, medical practitioners, and pregnant and birthing people is...
Lara Freidenfelds
Mar 22, 2023
44 views
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Pregnancy Test: An Interview with Karen Weingarten
Lara: How did you get interested in researching the history and culture of the pregnancy test? Karen: I’ve been writing about the...
Lara Freidenfelds
Mar 2, 2023
29 views
0 comments
What Does It mean to Have a “Real Choice” About Abortion?
What does it mean to have a “real choice” about abortion? I am writing this book review as the Supreme Court hears arguments over...
Lara Freidenfelds
Dec 16, 2021
20 views
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The problem with 'bereavement' leave after pregnancy loss
Last month New Zealand broke new ground with a national policy of "Bereavement Leave" following miscarriage. This is a welcome...
Lara Freidenfelds
Apr 7, 2021
54 views
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What About Men’s Reproductive Health?
In her latest book, GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health, sociologist Rene Almeling asks why all the public...
Lara Freidenfelds
Oct 14, 2020
49 views
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Pregnancy and Miscarriage on Social Media
New Metaphors to Make Miscarriages Easier to Talk About, and Easier to Bear For someone who has been trying for a pregnancy, it is...
Lara Freidenfelds
Oct 6, 2020
84 views
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An Incisive History of Cesarean Section
This is a pre-publication draft of my review of Jacqueline Wolf’s Cesarean Section: An American History of Risk, Technology, and...
Lara Freidenfelds
Jul 28, 2020
135 views
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The emergence of the home pregnancy test
With the arrival of cheaper and more user-friendly home pregnancy tests in the 1980s, women were able to confirm their pregnancies...
Lara Freidenfelds
Jan 27, 2020
40 views
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8 myths about pregnancy and miscarriage
In the decade and a half that I spent researching my book “The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America,” I...
Lara Freidenfelds
Jan 2, 2020
66 views
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How Did We Get Here? An Interview with Lara Freidenfelds (by Shannon Withycombe)
Lara Freidenfelds’s new book, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America, explores the history of pregnancy...
Lara Freidenfelds
Jan 1, 2020
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Making Room for Miscarriage
After I miscarried my first pregnancy, I quickly realized that I needed a historical perspective to make sense of this shockingly...
Lara Freidenfelds
Dec 31, 2019
57 views
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In Vitro Fertilization: From Science Fiction to Reality to History
It was not that long ago that “test tube babies” only existed in science fiction. I remember my shock when, in 2007, one of my students...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Oct 23, 2019
44 views
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Women Breaking the Silence on Miscarriage
I am glad to see so many women willing to break the silence on miscarriage. I am a historian, and I spent 15 years researching my...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Oct 21, 2019
16 views
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Journey Into Mothering with Historian Sarah Knott
In Mother Is a Verb, Sarah Knott takes her reader on a historian’s journey into motherhood. It is a sort of train travelogue, riding...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Jul 23, 2019
17 views
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A Tale of Two Midwives across Four Centuries
What happens when the person who delivers most of the babies in her community is arrested? This is a tale of two midwives, separated by...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Jun 26, 2019
15 views
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This is Not a Culture of Life, This is a Culture of Un-Death
Last week at a Vatican conference on abortion, Pope Francis “argued that children who were not expected to live long after birth deserved...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Jun 3, 2019
35 views
0 comments


Coming Home: How Midwives Changed Birth (review)
It’s a rare academic history book that tempts me to binge-read. Wendy Kline’s Coming Home: How Midwives Changed Birth is one of those...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Apr 25, 2019
54 views
0 comments
Washington Post op-ed: What Michelle Obama’s Miscarriage Teaches Us About Modern Pregnancy
“In her new book, “Becoming,” Michelle Obama reveals that she miscarried her first pregnancy, and went on to conceive her two daughters...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Nov 16, 2018
23 views
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Church Discipline and Miscarriage Mismanagement at Catholic Hospitals
Quick — is your nearest hospital affiliated with the Catholic Church? This is a question I would not have been able to answer during my...
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Nov 1, 2018
32 views
0 comments
How the abortion debate has skewed Americans’ understanding of pregnancy
What led a Walgreeens pharmacist to deny a woman her prescription. Read the rest at the Washington Post #conscienceclause #misoprostol
Lara Freidenfelds (Admin)
Jun 28, 2018
24 views
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