ABSTRACT
Antenatal classes are a good opportunity to gauge expectant parents’ attitudes and beliefs about labour and birth. Over the 25 years that I have been working in education for parenthood, I have noticed a steady escalation in the fear that women feel about birthing their babies. It is hard to know whether their fear has grown in line with the increase in screening and surveillance to which pregnancy is now subjected, or whether it is their fear that has generated the increased medical surveillance. Either way, pregnant women’s sense of self-efficacy, of being able to take charge of their lives, and control events in relation to birth, appears to have diminished significantly.
