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Marsden Wagner

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Marsden Wagner (23 February 1930 – 27 April 2014),[1] was a perinatologist and perinatal epidemiologist from California who served as a Director of Maternal and Child Health for the California State Health Department, Director of the University of Copenhagen-UCLA Health Research Center, and Director of Women's and Children's Health for the World Health Organization. He was an outspoken supporter of midwifery.

Career

Marsden Wagner was born in 1930 in San Francisco. He studied at the University of California at Los Angeles, earning an M.D., clinical specialty training in pediatrics, perinatology (neonatology and obstetrics) and an advanced scientific degree in perinatal science. Following several years of full-time clinical practice and some years as a full-time faculty member at UCLA, he became a Director of Maternal and Child Health for the California State Health Department. After six years in Denmark as Director of the University of Copenhagen-UCLA Health Research Center, he was for 15 years Director of Women's and Children's Health for the World Health Organization, during which time he chaired the three consensus conferences convened by WHO on appropriate technology around the time of birth. The 1985 WHO study Having a Baby in Europe, for which he was chair of the working party, was based on survey responses from 23 European countries and revealed great differences in practises.[2][3]

With extensive experience in maternity care in industrialized countries, including midwifery and the appropriate use of technology during pregnancy and birth, he consulted and lectured in over 50 countries and gave testimony before the US Congress, British Parliament, French National Assembly, Italian Parliament, Russian Parliament and others.

Wagner was an outspoken supporter of midwifery;[4][5] in 1995 he published an article in The Lancet describing a "global witch-hunt" against home birth.[6] In a 1997 article he described how his dissatisfaction with the medical establishment developed during his graduate studies and led to his further study in public health and eventually to his advocacy for midwives.[7]

Publications

His publications, in eleven different languages, include 131 scientific papers, 20 book chapters and 14 books, including Pursuing the Birth Machine (1994),[8] credited with creating a social model of birth,[9] and Creating Your Birth Plan (2006)[10] His Born in the USA (2006)[11] was described as a "scathing attack on professional standards of care" in The Women's Review of Books;[12] a reviewer in JAMA, while recognizing some of Wagner's arguments as valid, found "inaccuracies and misleading statements" and a lack of solid evidence that the proposed solutions would be beneficial.[13]

References

  1. ^ Terri LaPoint, "RIP – The Birth World Mourns The Loss Of Giants Marsden Wagner And David Chamberlain – Gone In The Same Week", Parenting, Inquisitr, May 2, 2014.
  2. ^ Having a Baby in Europe: Report on a Study, Public Health in Europe 26, World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe, 1985, ISBN 9789289011624.
  3. ^ Tessa Richards, "European Contrasts In Obstetrics", British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition) 294(6578), April 18, 1987): 990.
  4. ^ Connie Mikkelsen, "Jordemødre mod muren", Tidsskrift for Jordemødre 8 (2005) (in Danish)
  5. ^ Marsden Wagner, "Science, public health and genetic services". Menary Lecture, Ulster Medical Journal 60(2), October 1991: 212–18.
  6. ^ Marsden Wagner, "A global witch-hunt", The Lancet 346(8981), 14 October 1995: 1020–22, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(95)91696-2.
  7. ^ Marsden Wagner, "Confessions of a Dissident", in Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Robbie Davis-Floyd and Carolyn Fishel Sargent, Berkeley: University of California, 1997, ISBN 9780520918733, pp. 366–93.
  8. ^ Marsden Wagner, Pursuing the Birth Machine: The Search for Appropriate Birth Technology, Camperdown, New South Wales: ACE Graphics, 1994, ISBN 9780646168371.
  9. ^ Denis Walsh and Mary Newburn, "Towards a social model of childbirth: part one", British Journal of Midwifery 10(8) August 9, 2002:476–81.
  10. ^ Marsden Wagner with Stephanie Gunning, Creating Your Birth Plan: The Definitive Guide to a Safe and Empowering Birth, New York: Perigee, 2006, ISBN 9780399532573.
  11. ^ Marsden Wagner, Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First, Berkeley: University of California, 2006, ISBN 9780520245969.
  12. ^ Sarah Blustain, "Modern Childbirth: Failure to Progress" Review of: Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block; Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First by Marsden Wagner; Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy, The Women's Review of Books 24(4) July–August 2007: 3–5.
  13. ^ Joshua A. Copel, Review of Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed To Put Women and Children First, by Marsden Wagner, JAMA 297(15) 2007:1717–22, doi:10.1001/jama.297.15.1718.
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