Cooptation and Control: The Reconstruction of Inuit Birth

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Abstract
In this article we explore the implications for obstetric policies and practice of methods of recording, retrieving, and evaluating information. More particularly, we are concerned with the use of obstetrical records as a means of communication and surveillance, but also as a source of statistics. Perinatal mortality rates have assumed the status of ritualistic formulae cited in defense of any challenge to the medicalization of childbirth. As illustration we examine the role of the obstetrical record in the extension of medical control over childbirth among Inuit women from the Keewatin Region of the Northwest Territories. The introduction of medical services into the Arctic by the federal government led to the displacement of traditional ways of childbirth and to the evacuation of women to give birth far from their communities in Southern hospitals. Decreases in the perinatal mortality rate became both justification of this policy and a symbol of the beneficence of a government presence in the North.