In Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin, sociologists Rosanna Hertz and Margaret Nelson ask what it means fo...

With the arrival of cheaper and more user-friendly home pregnancy tests in the 1980s, women were able to confirm their pregnancies earlier and more easily th...

In the decade and a half that I spent researching my book “The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America,” I discussed pregnancy and...

Lara Freidenfelds’s new book, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America, explores the history of pregnancy and miscarriage in th...

After I miscarried my first pregnancy, I quickly realized that I needed a historical perspective to make sense of this shockingly unexpected and distressing ...

As a historian who has spent a career studying pregnancy and birth, I always look forward to Advent. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, the scripture ...

In November 2016, my Facebook feed was filled with friends’ dreaded anticipation of Thanksgiving with extended family, and particularly with that uncle: the ...

It was not that long ago that “test tube babies” only existed in science fiction. I remember my shock when, in 2007, one of my students at Wellesley College ...

I am glad to see so many women willing to break the silence on miscarriage. I am a historian, and I spent 15 years researching my forthcoming book, “The Myth...

This week I purged my bookshelves. As a Ph.D. historian, it initially felt like a risky move — somewhere in between disowning my former self and cutting out ...

What happens when the person who delivers most of the babies in her community is arrested? This is a tale of two midwives, separated by nearly four centuries...

Last week at a Vatican conference on abortion, Pope Francis “argued that children who were not expected to live long after birth deserved to be treated in th...

“Wait on the curb, kids. Wait until I say you can cross.” Janice, the crossing guard at Fairmount Avenue, stepped briskly into traffic, waving her sign and y...

“In her new book, “Becoming,” Michelle Obama reveals that she miscarried her first pregnancy, and went on to conceive her two daughters by in vitro fertiliza...

Quick — is your nearest hospital affiliated with the Catholic Church? This is a question I would not have been able to answer during my two pregnancies. It n...

Before 2016, conversations at school pickup time in my affluent suburb nearly always revolved around kids’ activities and home remodeling. We stayed away fro...

Are all of our “smart” devices training us to be “dumb” humans, too-often indistinguishable from mere machines? As click-through contracts and “like” buttons...