It is a pleasure to read an interesting academic book on babies. Small is an actual professor (well, was, emeritus now) of anthropology at Cornell, and this book is a popular gloss on ethnopediatrics, the anthropological subfield focusing on childrearing.

The first two chapters are a quick survey of the underlying theoretical perspectives. From an evolutionary perspective, humans are intelligent bipedal apes, and this basic biology informs the limits of what can pass through the birth canal. Human babies are notably helpless compared to other primates, effectively born 3 months premature in terms of basic motor skills. The other theory is one of cultural relativism. All cultures differ, no culture is inherently superior, and other cultures have useful things to teach us.

The next three chapters are focused on areas of obvious concern for new parents: sleeping, crying, and nursing. Here, Small skips among various ethnographies, showing how other cultures, especially traditional hunter-gatherers or pastoralists raise there young. The repeated impression is that the mother-baby dyad is close, and maintained by constant closeness: co-sleeping face-to-face, carrying in a sling, and breast feeding at very frequent intervals.

These traditional practices are in contrast to American childrearing, which is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic, but also just plain odd). Medicalized western births, starting with early separations at the hospital, and continuing on through a system of quiet and isolated nurseries and regimented feeding and sleep training systems, seem to produce mostly negative outcomes, from colicky babies, to failures to breastfeed, to child mortality far in excess of other developed nations.

Small has a clear agenda against medicalized births here, from the title which is a riff on the famous feminist health book "Our Bodies, Ourselves", to her selection of ethnographic case studies. In the decades since this book has been published medical practice has move towards Small's arguments. For our upcoming birth, Kaiser will place the baby on the mother immediately after delivery (barring a clear medical emergency). Breastfeeding is, if not well supported, better supported.

This is a fascinating book, but I wish Small had included more from other developed nations. We are unlikely to adapt !Kung childrearing practices, but perhaps the Netherlands or Japan has some cultural practices that better fit working motherhood under capitalism. Still, I can see this book being revolutionary when published, and it's aged very well.