The construction and politics of the ‘birth experience’ in Britain, 1948–93

A new concept of childbirth ‘experience’ emerged in late twentieth-century Britain, crafted by an erratic yet powerful mesh of interest groups. Experience is a powerful and malleable concept, that has been mobilised in different ways over time. In this case study, discussions of ‘experiencing’ childbirth were first the grounding for a culture of complaint, and birthing people were typically spoken for. In later years, to ‘experience’ childbirth was increasingly named, as a term and a concept. Indeed, the idea of a ‘birth experience’ became aspirational, and linked to distinctive and new cultures of celebration. This article’s analysis of the history of ‘birth experience’ traces this shift through archival methods, while also insisting that ‘experience’ does not simply exist for historians or geographers to ‘uncover’. Rather, experience must be closely attended to. In this case, these contested concepts of experience had significant implications for women’s lives and the ways in which they have made sense of childbirth in subsequent decades.