Abstract
Recently, the so-called "humanized childbirth" has been the subject of numerous studies, amounting to a social movement that speaks publicly against traditional birth, encouraging the use of "humanized" practices that are more adequate to the physiology of childbirth. In this article we discuss the way this new form of giving birth articulates itself with a renewed interpretation of the pain normally associated with childbirth. In our analysis we use interviews, training classes for doulas, blogs, websites, videos, movies and an e-book. We chose to focus primarily on the material accessed through the Internet, since the information and the political claims associated with the movement circulate mainly within virtual networks. We argue that the ideology of humanized childbirth is characterized by bricolages: between science and alternative conceptions of the world; between tradition and modernity. We seek to show how pain, re-signified by this new ideal, seems to be an intrinsic component of the experience of giving birth, and is a key value of the new identity of the woman who becomes a mother.
Key words:
Motherhood; Medicalization; Humanized birth; Pain