Abstract
The paper examines the relationship of space with obstetric practices and its role in the medicalisation of childbirth in a case study of the two maternity clinics of a provincial town in Greece. Typical birth care procedures in Volos were observed to act as rituals to define childbirth as a medical crisis and to transmit the message of superiority and necessity of medicine and technology in childbirth. The arrangements and uses of birth spaces made possible the application of the technomedical model with its high rate of obstetric interventions, while they supported and solidified its symbolic meanings. However, in the current economic and social crisis, these established practices are being challenged and alternative paradigms of birth care are being formed. Their interaction with existing spaces in maternity clinics and at home and the changes they required or caused are offering possibilities for new conceptualisations of birth, birth care and women's transition to maternity.
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