Anthropology of Childbirth. Cross-cultural approach

One of the purposes, and the red thread of this essay, is to explore some of the cross-cultural approaches to child birth and how they relate to the culture which they represent. Why do women make the choices that they make? Who has influence in decision making regarding pregnancy and childbirth? Do we have total personal freedom to control our bodies when it comes to health care or are we influenced by society and our cultural background? Anthropology of childbirth: cross-cultural approach is not an original study, but an overview essay about the main theories, ideas, movements and etc. dominating in the field of Anthropology about the process of childbirth with a cross-cultural approach to it. I discuss hospitalized birth and caesarean birth and reasons for its increasing popularity. Natural birth, homebirth with ideas of Sheila Kitzinger is also presented in this paper. For theoretical background I chose the theories of Foucault and Bourdieu. Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge as well as Bourdieu’s concepts of power and habitus are used to analyze data in this thesis