Rapid Response publishes essays that relate to rapidly evolving experiences.
Members of the MAQ community are invited to submit material for Rapid Responses–either contributions to an existing series or ideas for a new series–directly to the Online MAQ Editor for consideration. Submissions will be reviewed expediently and posted as quickly as possible.
Rapid Response publishes pieces from SMA’s “Takes A Stand”, an initiative which encourages medical anthropologists to collaborate on policy-related reviews and briefs.
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Women struggle to access safe maternal care in the world’s harshest lockdown
Though India reduced its maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by 77%, from 556 per 100 000 live births in 1990 to 130 per 100,000 live births in 2016, its maternal health system remains tenuous. Many districts still do not have high-quality delivery services, referral services, or…
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New York’s Virtual Black Birth Workers: A Birth Justice Response to COVID-19
After COVID-19 began to spread across the United States, New York State (NYS) quickly became one of the country’s epicenters. Consequently, NYS and its health facilities took drastic measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Within hospital-based maternity care, there were…
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COVID-19: challenging Ireland to move from Mastership to Midwifeship
In 2019, Ireland recorded a total of 59,796 births, one of the highest birthrates in the European Union. At the outset of the pandemic, we could thus roughly estimate demands on reproductive services in terms of numbers, but we knew little about how COVID…
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“The Hospital is Haunted”: Maternal Health, Pandemics, and Collective Care among Indigenous Women affected by HIV
“That hospital is haunted,” Isabel whispered. “I told Shauna not to trust nobody there. Even when she had trouble with her pregnancy, I told her we’d figure it out another way. Don’t ever go to the hospital. It’s haunted.” Isabel is a…
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“Pandemic Disruptions” in Surrogacy Arrangements in Germany, U.S.A., and India during COVID-19
Gestational surrogacy is a medically assisted reproductive technology (ART) in which a woman carries a child for others and hands it over to them after birth. This ART is marketed as a service to those experiencing a “reproductive disruption” on their journey…
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Home versus the hospital: Negotiating birth location risk and midwifery’s value in Mexico
As residents of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo began to adopt social distancing practices and hospitals and clinics emptied of their usual patients in preparation for providing COVID-19 treatment in March and early April, home-birth midwives saw a surge in demand…