Pregnancy

At Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas, doctors performed C-sections on half of all women with low-risk pregnancies — first-time mothers at full term, carrying a single baby positioned head-down — on average, in a seven-year period.

In the spring of 2016, obstetrician Dr. Jesanna Cooper's practice hired a nurse-midwife to deliver babies at Princeton Baptist Medical Center, a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. The nurse-midwife was the center's first in about 20 years.

Kelsey Birch remembers the crushing pressure, the sharp jerks, and the feeling of hands inside her abdomen. "I felt like I was being torn apart," she said. "I couldn't handle it."