★ 11/14/2022
Midwife Hazard (Hard Pushed) delivers a bravura cultural history of the uterus and the politics that surround it. Surveying how gendered ideas and expectations impact uterine health, she traces the history of obstetrics and notes a tendency in such terms as “irritable uterus” and “incompetent cervix” to “conflate a woman and her uterus into one troublesome package.” Stories of women navigating medical institutions highlight the frequent disregard that patients often encounter from professionals, as when it took weeks for doctors to take a pregnant woman’s complaints about debilitating pain seriously enough to perform a scan that revealed a dangerous abnormality. Hazard passionately argues for abortion access, telling of women in Ireland and Poland who died from sepsis because doctors refused to perform the potentially lifesaving procedure. Whether discussing such antique myths as the “wandering womb” or providing a firsthand account of a uterine transplant, Hazard’s eye is keen, her range broad, and her tone scrupulously compassionate. Additionally, this benefits from the author’s recognition that people relate to their wombs in myriad ways, as exemplified in her interview with a trans man on how his quality of life improved after a hysterectomy. This is essential reading on the “most miraculous and misunderstood organ in the human body.” (Mar.)
“Leah Hazard conducts a searching and compassionate investigation into ‘the most miraculous and misunderstood organ in the human body.’ . . . All but the most learned medical historians will be astonished by what Hazard reveals, both in the scope of what the womb can do and in the work it has taken, over several centuries, to produce our still-evolving body of knowledge about the organ.” — New York Times Book Review
“Leah Hazard approaches a fascinating topic with professional expertise and lively human sympathy.” — Hilary Mantel
“Hazard delivers a bravura cultural history of the uterus and the politics that surround it…. Hazard’s eye is keen, her range broad, and her tone scrupulously compassionate.... This is essential reading." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[Hazard] fearlessly tackles the myths, history, and science of the uterus in this new book…. A revelatory, straightforward, and important work.” — Library Journal (starred review)
“Meticulously researched and powerfully told, Womb is an awe-inspiring exploration of one of the most misunderstood organs of the human body. Compassionate and compelling, Leah Hazard's vital new narrative reveals the importance of understanding the uterus for body autonomy, reproductive justice, and human rights. A phenomenal book.” — Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women
“An erudite, compassionate and fascinating biography of a much-maligned organ. Womb is sharp and political, learned and wise, and urgent and necessary. Above all else, Leah Hazard is a brilliant storyteller. I loved it.” — Katherine May, author of Wintering
“Page for page, I may not have ever learned more from a book. And I enjoyed myself throughout. Yes, Womb is a history book as well as a biology book but it’s also an adventure and a celebration. It’s sensitive but unflinching and a very, very worthy introduction to an organ I once inhabited but can only now say I truly appreciate. I loved this book.” — Rob Delaney, actor and author of A Heart That Works
"Well-researched and enlightening." — Kirkus Reviews
“[A] searching and compassionate investigation into “the most miraculous and misunderstood organ in the human body.” — New York Times
★ 12/01/2022
Hazard (Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story), a practicing National Health Service (NHS) midwife, fearlessly tackles the myths, history, and science of the uterus in this new book. As she explains periods, conception, labor, menopause, and hysterectomies, Hazard addresses underserved populations, women of color, and people who are transgender, along with the areas where more research is needed—and it is needed in nearly every aspect of women's reproductive health. When issues border on the political, she defers to the World Health Organization and NHS guidelines, keeping her thesis taut throughout. She incorporates the rise of social media as an influencer of women's health, including PeriodTok (part of TikTok), the recent change in the United States' legislative position on abortion, as well as the language that surrounds wombs: an "irritable" uterus, an "incompetent" cervix, and the ever-complicated social history of a "hysteria" diagnosis. To combat the shame surrounding uterine health, Hazard empowers readers with vocabulary and scientific understanding of the uterine microbiome, Braxton-Hicks contractions, fibroids, and endometriosis. In the middle of the book, she compassionately pauses to address all the forms loss can take for a woman and her womb, at all phases of her reproductive journey. VERDICT A revelatory, straightforward, and important work.—Tina Panik
2023-01-05
A celebration of women’s reproductive organs.
Hazard, a midwife for Britain’s National Health Service and host of the podcast What the Midwife Said, offers an informative, thoughtful investigation of “the complexity of birthing bodies,” focusing particularly on the uterus: its structure, microbiome, and “how it grows, bleeds, births, and transforms with life’s ever-changing tides.” Drawing on considerable research, interviews, and her own experience as a midwife and mother, the author offers a comprehensive overview of female anatomy and the problems and challenges that may occur at different stages of life. She explains the development of the uterus and its vital role in conception; the surprisingly rich composition of menstrual tissue; and the process of birth. This includes labor, which may involve induction with a synthetic hormone; delivery, increasingly by elective Cesarean section; and postnatal care. She discusses the unfortunate outcomes of some pregnancies when chromosomal abnormalities, maternal infection, or medical conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes result in a stillbirth; or when wombs inexplicably “tighten and surge” before full term has been reached, expelling a fetus that is not viable. Hazard looks at many common maladies, such as fibroids and endometriosis, as well as interventions such as hysterectomy and the controversial use of hormones to suppress menstruation. As she traces gynecological and obstetric history, dominated by male physicians and scientists, she debunks terms and assumptions that demean a woman’s natural functions: menstruation, for one, often viewed “as embarrassing, gross, and downright dangerous.” Similarly, if a woman has trouble conceiving or maintaining a pregnancy, she risks being diagnosed with a “hostile” or “irritable” uterus or an “incompetent cervix.” Hazard’s investigation has taken her to the forefront of scientific innovation, such as uterine transplants, but she points to inequities in funding for women’s health. As she clearly shows, the womb is “linked inextricably to our biological, social, and political destinies.”
A well-researched and enlightening book of popular science.
