The Battle over Birth

Childbirth is a site of ongoing struggle over meaning, authority, regulation and control. This edited collection offers critical perspectives on current challenges in birth care by exploring how birth is shaped by competing epistemologies: medical, cultural, experiential and political. The book addresses analytically and theoretically some of the many negotiations, tensions, contestations and dilemmas with regard to care practices as well as birthing experiences. Moreover, the book reflects on how these challenges can be grasped as dilemmas moving beyond the often-declared dichotomy between medical and midwifery models of care or natural versus medical birth. The chapters are authored by researchers within the fields of social and human sciences, located geographical in different countries within different historical, organisational and political birth care settings. The book is oriented to not only scholars and students with interest into birth care but also practitioners and stakeholders politically and professionally engaged in the development of maternity care practices and settings.

Nicole Thualagant, PhD, is Associate Professor and Head of Study in Critical Health Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. She is also chairperson of the Danish Sociological Association and vice-chairperson in the Nordic Sociological Association. As a sociologist with an interest in the politics of life and the interrelations between policy and practice, she investigates how policies on birth care is developed, legitimized institutionally, and performed and negotiated in current society. ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5197-8979 Katja Schrøder, RM, PhD, Head of Study of Master of Science in Health Science at the University of Southern Denmark. She is a research member of the Europe Regional Committee, International Confederation of Midwives. She was former President of The Danish Society of Midwifery (2018-2021). With a clinical background in midwifery, she has a strong interest in maternity care and women's reproductive health. ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-7237

Introduction: Childbirth in Dispute: An Introduction to the Contested Space, 1. Negotiating normalcy in birth policies: The case of the UK and Denmark, 2. Reproductive In/Justice? The Production of Ignorance in the Politics of Midwifery in Ontario, Canada, 3. Beyond One Place for Birth: Undoing Stratified Reproduction as a Route to Choice and Equity, 4. Navigating master narratives: imperative norms and polyphony in childbirth narratives, 5. Contested voices - hidden emotions: the insight from the polarised home birth debate, 6. The Politics of Normal Birth - Boundary Work and the Moralisation of Care in Indonesian Midwifery, 7. Conflicting birth care ideals within the profession of midwifery, 8. Expanding Midwifery Care in Ontario, Canada: Beyond Birth as a Contested Space, 9. Aiming for zero harm: Cultural drivers of overdiagnosis in medicalized birthing, 10. Boundaries of Birth, Medicine, and the Body: Toward a Theory of Obstetric Justice