| Abstract [eng] |
The scientific problem of the master's thesis is the relationship between childbirth practices and experiences, social status and reflexive consumer attitudes. Drawing on data from survey of 2702 women's birth experiences in Lithuania in 2019-2020, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify three main axes that describe women's birth experiences: the empowerment of women during childbirth, women's active / passive participation in childbirth-related decisions, and the axis of radical / incremental interventions. The axis of empowerment is mainly related to the assessment of the behavior of staff providing maternity care. Women from higher social backgrounds (in terms of education, income and urban living) felt more involved in decision-making, but their experiences were not more empowering. Women giving birth to a second or later child felt more involved in decision-making, and their experiences were more empowering. The differences discussed were of small significance. Based on the distinguished axes, a typology of 7 types of childbirth experiences is proposed: childbirth in collaboration with physicians; childbirth as a struggle; childbirth with full trust in physicians; experience of disappointment; childbirth with delivery complications; traumatic childbirth; birth of a reflexive consumer. The first four types denote different combinations of the axes of empowerment and active participation, and the last three types are associated with outliers. However the narratives associated with the three last types are more pronounced and easier to recognize: the narrative of medically complicated childbirth is associated with a discourse of childbirth medicalization, the narrative of traumatic birth relates to the critics of maternity care- system and the narrative of reflexive user – with a higher social status and the search for alternative methods of childbirth (such as home birth or caesarean section of a woman's choice). |
