ABSTRACT
The practice of childbirth in the West has been characterised by a long history of contestation. Arguments concerning the most appropriate primary care-giver to the birthing woman, and questions relating to authority over decision-making in birth, suggest that childbirth is an intensely political issue. If childbirth has raised issues about the effects of power on bodies, discussion has often been generated by feminists concerned to link childbirth to a history of struggles concerning the medico-technical control of women’s bodies.
