 The medicalization of pregnancy and birth takes many forms. North American births typically involve a variety of technological interventions, regularly including labor-inducing drugs, spinal epidurals, fetal monitoring, and—in roughly one third of births—surgical delivery. Prior to birth, most pregnancies will involve medical interventions such as genetic testing, ultrasound screening, prescriptions to control various symptoms and risks, and—with increasing frequency—technological assistance for conception. Importantly, however, the rate and intensity with which such interventions are offered or imposed is far from uniform. Dorothy Roberts highlights the striking disparity of benefits enjoyed as a result of medicalization: "The multibillion-dollar apparatus devoted to technologically facilitating affluent couples' procreative decisions stands in glaring contrast to the high rate of infant death among black people, which remains more than twice the rate for whites" (2009, 784, citing Mathews and MacDorman 2007). Some dimensions of the medicalization of pregnancy do not directly involve medical interventions. Both inside and outside the clinic, pregnancy is treated as a medical event requiring intense risk management, monitoring, and appeals to expert medical knowledge: pregnant women are expected to regulate and monitor their eating, drinking, fetal kicks, weight gain, sleeping position, emotions, exposure to basic household products, exercise, sexual activity, and many other aspects of their lives according to standards established by medical professionals (Kukla 2005). Recently, there has been a vigorous mandate to involve medical professionals in helping women regulate their bodies in accordance with medical standards for minimizing reproductive risk even prior to conception. The CDC now recommends that all primary care for all women who may eventually become pregnant (including prepubescent girls) be treated as ‘preconception care’ (Kuehn 2006). A majority of women embrace at least some aspects of medicalization; many take it as part of responsible motherhood to maximize the expert management of their pregnancies and to follow risk-minimization advice carefully (Seigel 2013).