ABSTRACT
Personal factors, such as the woman's age, ethnicity, social class, religion and culture, may influence the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. This chapter explores the concepts of 'race', ethnicity and culture in respect to pregnancy and childbirth. It also explores the issues of access to maternity services, stereotyping and racism within the context of midwifery service provision and practice. The chapter examines definitions and terms, sets them in the context of the evolutionary framework and attempts to illustrate their usefulness and limitations with evidence from the literature. Much of the discourse will be conceptually based and applied to midwifery to inform practice. The chapter presents the relationship between poverty, ethnicity and poorer outcomes of pregnancy and childbirth. Intergenerational differences in the beliefs and practices of women about care during pregnancy, childbirth and following delivery have been reported by, demonstrating how inappropriate it is to stereotype such communities; there are so many differences.
