Jezebel: Brazilian Women Taking Back Control of Their Birth Canals, by Doug Barry:
Brazil, the land of talking exotic birds, is wrestling with a childbirth culture that has, in recent years, relied on interventionist procedures such as C-sections. More than half of all babies born in Brazil are delivered via cesarean, a figure, according to the Associated Press, that rises to 82 percent for women on private insurance. Last month, however, Brazilian women, in a push to gain more control over childbirth, organized 13 marches all over the country, largely in response to a medical regulating agency in Rio de Janeiro forbidding doctors from performing home births and labor coaches known as "doulas" from helping in hospital wards. . . .