One of the most prevalent myths about human pregnancy is that of all possible outcomes, a baby is the most likely. Pregnancy Interrupted challenges the misleadingly linear narrative that begins with two lines on a pregnancy test and ends with a newborn. Drawing on Kate Clancy鈥檚 own deeply personal stories of pregnancy loss and moving interviews with others, it reveals how the frequency of loss and miscarriage is far more common than most realize. This provocative book makes an impassioned, fact-based case for truthfulness and care at a time when inaccurate images of fetuses abound, electronic impulses continue to pass for a heartbeat, and reproductive autonomy is criminalized.
Presenting the unvarnished science of pregnancy loss, Clancy validates the experiences of women and gender minorities, offers solace for the person on her third miscarriage, and gives guidance for lawmakers and advocates seeking change. While genetic errors make some losses inevitable, this is not the whole story. Clancy describes how other factors increase the risk鈥攆rom the choices we sometimes make to environmental and social conditions that go overlooked or ignored. She exposes the links between miscarriage and stressors like physical and emotional violence and explores how we might prevent miscarriages and stillbirths while mitigating the trauma when they do occur.
Pregnancy Interrupted provides an eye-opening account of pregnancy and loss as an unpredictable yet universal experience.
Kate Clancy is professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she holds appointments in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology. She is the author of Period: The Real Story of Menstruation (快色直播) and has written for The Washington Post, Scientific American, National Geographic, American Scientist, and WIRED.
"Clancy’s book examines the mythmaking of pregnancy.... There are a seemingly infinite number of ways that pregnancy can be misunderstood, mislabelled, or oversimplified, whether because of deceptively binary tests or cultural narratives that tell us pregnancy is a linear experience. Clancy tries to complicate these ideas, and to capture what she calls the “physiological reality of pregnancy, which is that most of them end without a baby."鈥擜poorva Tadepalli, New Yorker
“In Pregnancy Interrupted, Kate Clancy challenges the simplistic stories we tell about pregnancy and replaces them with something far more honest, humane, and necessary. With scientific rigor, compassion, and deep care for those too often left unseen, she illuminates the realities of pregnancy loss in all their complexity. This is an important and deeply affecting book.”—Uch茅 Blackstock, MD, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity and New York Times bestselling author of Legacy
“Rigorously researched and thoughtfully written, this book helps heal—offering solace for those touched by pregnancy loss and lifting the stigma around these complex experiences.”—Jessica Zucker, PhD, psychologist and award-winning author of Normalize It and I Had a Miscarriage
“A tremendously important book that meets this moment in reproductive healthcare with courage, compassion, and meticulous research.”—Leah Hazard, midwife and Sunday Times bestselling author of Hard Pushed and Womb
“This is a book of such compelling empathy and expertise—vitally important but also heartfelt and enlightening.”—Juno Carey, author of A Necessary Kindness
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