Choice, Control and Contemporary Childbirth: Understanding Through Women's Stories

Current maternity policy advocates choice and control for women in maternity care, and promotes women as active childbirth consumers and decision-makers. However, evidence that women receive true choice within contemporary maternity services is lacking, and continued and pervasive barriers to choice continue to have profound consequences for many. Choice, Control and Contemporary Childbirth explores the narrative childbirth experiences of a group of women, outlining current policy and providing an overview of the relevant discourses to which women are exposed when making choices for maternity care. This book is unique in presenting narratives that reveal varying identities for women across their maternity exerience, illustrating how maternity choices are simulataneously promised and constrained. It provides practitioners, service providers and policymakers in maternity care, and all those with an interest in birth provision, with profound insights into both women's experiences of childbirth and how choices can be better facilitated in future.