This paper emerges from my on-going research into birth experience and lay support people
in the birth room, and presents findings from two recent projects interviewing birthing women …

Over the last 30 years or so, feminists have developed a strong and influential critique of the
medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth. Within Britain, especially among middle-class …

In this article the focus is on how the relation between the self and body is formulated in
medical/healthcare discourses and how these affect the experiences of pregnant women. I …

Background The birth story has been widely understood as a crucial source of knowledge
about childbirth. What has not been reported is the effect that birth stories may have on …

The academic study of the 'body'has come to occupy the foreground over the past two
decades and the differential influences of physical and social worlds particularly upon body …

Most women's experiences of childbearing in the UK today are medicalised, as birth takes
place predominantly in a hospital, on a maternity ward and in the presence or under the …

This dissertation reports on a qualitative study of the childbearing experiences of 20 women
having their first child. The study attempts to examine the dominant discourses surrounding …

OBJECTIVE: women's experiences of childbirth have far reaching implications for their
health and that of their babies. This paper describes an exploration of women's experiences …

The experience of childbirth is one of the most corporeal of the human condition. Against a
backdrop of profound change in the milieu of birthing over the past 30 years, especially in …

Birth narratives have been found to provide women with the most accessible and often
utilised means for giving voice to their exploration of meaning in their births. The stories …