“Invisible Labor”: First book from Associate Professor of Digital Media & Journalism Rachel Somerstein explores what C-sections reveal about reproductive care

In her first book “Invisible Labor,” from HarperCollins, Associate Professor of Digital Media & Journalism Rachel Somerstein examines the ways that Cesarean sections, or C-sections, can tell us about the forces shaping women’s healthcare in America.

The book was inspired in part by Somerstein’s personal experiences with a C-section. Following the birth of her child, she then harnessed her academic and journalistic training to talk with physicians, midwives, doulas, researchers, and birthing people to learn why birth has come to look the way it does, and how to reimagine a different future.  

Although a third of babies are born via C-section in the United States, and most of the procedures are administered safely, the surgery is not without significant and sometimes life-changing consequences, such as when, and how, someone can have a subsequent baby, with its burdens falling disproportionately on people of color. Mothers are often left to navigate these complications alone, with C-sections all but invisible in well-thumbed pregnancy guides and even standard medical advice received before and after birth.

 “Invisible Labor” peels back the unfortunate racist and sexist history behind the C-Section, and how it led to this reproductive care crisis.  

“There are just so many of us throughout every echelon of society, looking like normal, well-adjusted people doing our thing, belying the traumatizing or otherwise unresolved C-section at the center,” said Somerstein.

While “Invisible Labor” is Somerstein’s first book, she has penned articles for the Washington Post, Guernica, Wired and other notable publications. Read more here about Somerstein’s work. 

She recently shared more insights on “Invisible Labor” for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air program. Click here for the full interview transcript.  

Somerstein will take part in meet-and-greets for “Invisible Labor” at Golden Hour Books in Newburgh, New York on Thursday, June 20 and in New York City sometime in July.

More information on SUNY New Paltz’s Department of Digital Media & Journalism is available here.