Texas A&M Sociologist Theresa Morris, a professor in the Department of Sociology, was recently recognized with the 2026 Merit Award from the Eastern Sociological Society for decades of research related to childbirth, hospital systems and the institutional forces that shape women’s experience during childbirth. The award is one of the organization’s highest honors, reflecting a lifetime of scholarly contribution.
Foundations in Organizational Research
Morris did not begin her career studying childbirth. Trained as an organizational sociologist, she earned her Ph.D. in 2000 at a time when regulatory changes were reforming the U.S. banking industry. Her early research focused on mergers, acquisitions and structural shifts in financial institutions, including how those shifts altered access to capital and racial inequality in banking. She studied how organizations operate, looking at how rules, incentives and policy structures guide behavior inside large systems and corporations.
In the same year she earned her Ph.D., she endured a traumatic childbirth experience with her first child, which she delivered via a cesarean section, or C-section — a procedure in which the mother is surgically cut through the abdomen and uterus to deliver the baby. In preparation for her second child in 2005, she found it surprisingly difficult to locate a birthing environment that prioritized her safety and comfort.
She presented doctors with research to support her decision to have vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) — a process of attempting a vaginal delivery of a baby when the person has previously delivered via C-section — as a safe option but was met with opposition from doctors.
“All of the organizational rules and professional guidelines were affecting me in ways that weren’t rational from my perspective,” she said. “We were reading the same literature but reaching different conclusions.”
Prompted by her personal childbirth experiences, Morris began asking questions about power, decision-making and whether mothers’ opinions are valued in medicine. In2006, those questions led to a shift in her research agenda. “What really interests me now is the way that reproduction — and in turn women’s lives — are affected by organizations,” she said.
Morris began noticing parallels between the institutions she had studied in banking and the systems aligned with maternity care. Her studies became more personal, and previous questions about regulation and incentives now addressed hospital policies and insurance structures.
“Until then, I never thought about how women’s reproductive lives are embedded in organizations and thus sometimes outside their control,” she said. “These ideas percolated for a long time as I thought about all the ways these organizations affect women’s births.”
The C-Section Epidemic and the Mother’s Experience
Those questions led to her first major book, which she published in 2013, Cut It Out: The C-Section Epidemic in America.
“C-section rates have hovered at 30 to 33 percent for more than 20 years, which is way too high,” Morris said, noting that the international health-care community has considered the ideal rate for C-sections to be between 10% and 15%, as it may increase risks of infection, blood loss and severe pain for the mother.
Through interviews with physicians, nurses and patients, Morris closely investigated how institutional pressures influence delivery decisions. In her interviews, physicians spoke of constant anxiety about lawsuits. “Doctors think about their malpractice risk a lot,” she said. “With everything they do, they're worried about somebody suing them.”
Morris noted that the law is traditionally more concerned with the welfare of the baby than the mother. “If an infant is injured in a vaginal birth, the doctor is likely to be sued for not performing a C-section, but when a mother suffers during a C-section, doctors are more likely to face only legal action if she dies,” Morris said.
Insurance companies also caution doctors from performing VBACs due to the risks. “Hospitals will tell you the option for VBACs is available, they will later tell you that no doctor will do them,” Morris said. “It’s a de facto ban.”
That affects doctor’s documentation and decision-making throughout the experience. “Every time you write a note in the patient’s chart, you’re thinking, ‘What do I need to say to keep from being sued?’” she said. “What that does is raises the chances for a C-section, as that procedure is less likely to have complications.”
Some of Morris’s research findings were disturbing. “I have seen a pattern of women who talked about screaming during their C-sections, begging doctors to stop, and the doctors ignored them,” she said. “This is a problem.”
For Morris, the issue reflects the structural incentives that doctors face in the American health care system that shape how they weigh risk in the delivery room and who is prioritized in these high-risk situations.
The Public Impact
Morris believes public engagement is part of her responsibility as a scholar. She regularly speaks with medical students and residents about consent, maternal health and patient dignity. During these presentations, she often encounters future physicians who were previously unaware of the seriousness of these issues.
“Treat them like they’re women,” Morris said. “Treat them like they’re individuals. Talk to them. Don’t do things without asking.”
Reflecting on the impact of these conversations, Morris said the shift can be powerful.
“When someone names it and recognizes that it’s wrong, it allows them to see the world differently,” she said.
Morris allows that focus to guide how she mentors her students. Carli Copell, a doctoral student of sociology at Texas A&M, has been working under Morris’s guidance since 2023, and says that she is consistently pushed to think carefully about the broader significance of the research she chooses to work on.
“I remember bringing an early research idea to Dr. Morris that felt interesting but not fully formed,” Copell said. “Instead of just giving me an answer, she asked a series of questions that pushed me to think more carefully about why the question mattered sociologically and what larger conversation it contributed to.”
Copell also noted that Morris encourages all of her students to think about how their research can reach audiences outside of academia. “She consistently encourages her students to think about how our research can extend beyond the classroom and academic journals to make a meaningful impact in the communities we study,” Copell said.
“Dr. Morris has shaped the kind of scholar I aspire to be by demonstrating that the best academic work combines rigorous research with a genuine commitment to teaching, mentorship and the people we serve,” she said.
Morris continues to study how institutions shape some of the most intimate moments of people’s lives; by examining the experience of childbirth with this framework, her research highlights the policies, incentives, and organizational structures shape the mother’s experience. As she shares her research with the public, future researchers, and physicians, she looks to improve how those systems serve mothers.