ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the historical, ideological and structural conditions shaping the current system of maternity care in Russia, with particular attention to the hybridization of State paternalism and marketization and the consequent emergence of institutional uncertainties. We describe the path of the State reforms in 1990s–2010s and other societal processes that have shaped the transformation of post-Soviet maternity care during the last three decades: decentralization in the 1990s, demographic ideological concerns in the mid-2000s, and centralization from the mid-2000s on. We argue that results of this transformation are contradictory, as different principles of regulation have been developed in the studied field, evoking practical discrepancies. Analysis of the trajectories of childbearing women demonstrates the discontinuity in maternity care, while practical issues in maternity hospitals uncover contradictory regulatory logics and multiple inconsistencies in maternity care organization and provision.
