Delivering the impossible? The contradiction of maternity care provision

Introduction

This paper explores the contradiction of maternity care provision in England. The contradiction arises because rhetoric and policy related to the maternity services has, since the early 1990s, enshrined the simple and powerful concept of woman-centred care, but the reality of practice has foregrounded a risk averse agenda increasingly focused on medicalisation. The principle of woman-centred care has at its heart a commitment to choice and control by women over their experience of the childbearing year.