Medicalisation of Childbirth

The concept of medicalisation Originally, the concept of medicalisation was strongly associated with medical dominance, involving the extension of medicines jurisdiction over erstwhile normal life events and experiences. More recently, however, this view of a docile lay populace, in thrall to expansionist medicine, has been challenged. Thus, as we enter a post-modern era, with increased concerns over risk and a decline in the religion of expert authority, many sociologists argue that the modern day consumer of healthcare plays an active role in bringing active or resisting medicalisation.Such participation, however, can be ruffianly as healthcare consumers become increasingly aware of the risks and uncertainty surrounding many medical choices. The emergence of the modern day consumer not only raises questions about the notion of medicalisation as a uni-dimensional concept, but also requires consideration of the specific social contexts in which medicalisation occurs. In this paper , we describe how the concept of medicalisation is presented in the literature, outlining different accounts of agency that shape the process.We suggest that some earlier accounts of medicalisation over-emphasized the medical professions imperialistic tendencies and often underplayed the benefits of medicine. With consideration of the social context in which medicalisation, or its converse, arises, we argue that medicalisation is a practically more complex, ambiguous, and contested process than the medicalisation thesis of the 1970s implied.In particular, as we enter a post-modern era, conceptualizing medicalisation as a uni-dimensional, uniform process or as the leave alone of medical dominance alone is clearly insufficient. Indeed, if, as Conrad and Schneider (1992) suggested, medicalisation was linked to the rise of rationalism and science (ie to modernity), and if we are experiencing the passing of modernity, we might expect to see a decrease in medicalisation