This month’s titles, featured in Cornellians, include "Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section" by A&S alum Rachel Somerstein ’04.
Invisible Labor by Rachel Somerstein ’04
Kirkus calls Somerstein’s nonfiction work—subtitled The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section—“a sharp account of an agonizing experience of childbirth.”
The Arts & Sciences alum is an associate professor of journalism at SUNY New Paltz.
She was inspired to write the book after the birth of her first baby—during which she labored more than 24 hours and ultimately underwent an unplanned C-section without pain control due to an anesthesia failure.
“As part of my healing, I also wanted to understand more about C-sections as a phenomenon: how they came to be the most common operation in the world,” Somerstein writes in the introduction.
“To my surprise, I found that although they may be a relatively simple operation for a new doctor to learn, the forces that have increased their numbers are incredibly complex.”
