助産所で産むことと開業助産師の活動についての一考察 ―「さくらバース」の事例を中心に―

摘要

Until the 1950s, childbirth generally took place in the home. The proportion of hospital childbirths rose rapidly from the 1960s, and from the 1990s birth management associated with artificial medical intervention, the medicalization of birth, came to be seen as an issue. However, while childbirth in a birth center is one form of facility-based birth, as hospital birth is, since it offers the natural birth that women in childbirth seek, it is the opposite of birth with artificial medical interventions.I have implemented an interview survey with respect to the activities of Sakura Birth and women who have given birth there. It was clear that women about to give birth aspire to a natural birth without perineotomy, and that they are selecting Sakura Birth through information on the Internet or through word of mouth. The practicing midwives who are assisting in the birth are responding to the needs of these women for natural birth by inproving the quality of their midwifery and guidance skills, as well as continuing to provide services such as recording the babyu27s first cry and footprints immediately after the birth.Thus if we consider natural birth to be a form of consumer birth, then the "natural" birth mode becomes a commodity differentiated from "artificial" birth. The practicing midwife then becomes the provider of "natural birth" and various other mother-and-child services, and it is also possible to view this as a birth center business strategy in the present era of falling birthrates.