Episiotomy: Challenging Obstetric Interventions

Each year, more than 200,000 women in the UK and over 1.5 million women in the US undergo an episiotomy. In many countries, this operation has been adopted as routine and standard obstetrical practice.

This important book, challenges the liberal use of this procedure and provides new insights into the process by which maternity practice changes. As it traces the introduction, routinazation and questioning of episiotomy in the US and the UK, it identifies and explores the medical and non-medical factors responsible for changing obstetrics and midwifery thinking and the use of this procedure. The book suggests practical ways for practitioners to bring about evidence-based change in midwifery practice.

Key features of the book:

• presents a cross-national case study of episiotomy


• challenges the tradition of routine intervention


• brings together international statistics into one source


• offers practical suggestions for effecting change


• promotes evidence-based practice

The book is written by Ian D. Graham PhD, Medical Sociologist at the Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Ottawa Civic Hospital Loeb research Institute, Canada, with a contribution from Barbara Davies RN, PhD (cand), Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa