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- Challenging the biomedical model of childbirth
Challenging the biomedical model of childbirth

Health means different things to different people, and this is reflected in the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in this free course, Challenging the biomedical model of childbirth. People's views on health and disease are often influenced by official discourse which today, just as in times past, has projected authoritative messages about what should be considered important. Such official accounts contain judgements about health, emphasising some ideas and practices while marginalising others. In childbirth, there have been many challenges to these official ways of seeing and doing, and this course focuses on some of them.
Course learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
- discuss the dominance of biomedicine in Western societies' experience of childbirth
- understand concerns about the medicalisation of childbirth
- demonstrate knowledge of challenges to the biomedical model and how a broader, more social view of childbirth is emerging
- show knowledge of how childbirth is a highly individual experience, and how research has tried to capture and understand the challenges women face in making birth choices.
You can start this course right now without signing-up. Click on any of the course content sections below to start at any point in this course.
If you want to be able to track your progress, earn a free Statement of Participation, and access all course quizzes and activities, sign-up.
Course content
- Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 The medicalisation of childbirth
- 2 Exploring the range of challenges
- 3 Values and choices in childbirth – putting the official response into practice
- 4 Personal experiences of childbirth
- 5 Survey research into the experience of childbirth
- Conclusion
- Keep on learning
- References
- Acknowledgements
- This site has Copy Reuse Tracking enabled - see our FAQs for more information.
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5 hours study
Level 1: Introductory
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