Published : 2025-11-20

About the Identity and Turning Points in the Lives of Women who Chose Home as Their Birthplace

Abstract

The subject of the analysis is women's identity and the turning points that have a determining influence on their decision to choose a house as their birthplace. The analysis of identity and turning points in the lives of mothers who gave birth at home was based on the concepts of Anselm Strauss (sociology, social interactionist theory): identity has an interactive nature, identity undergoes transformation and has its turning points, in identity construction, language and participation in different social worlds play an important role, important in the transformation of identity are status transitions which are accompanied by rituals, the importance of the coaching phenomenon for identity transformation.

The identity of women giving birth was called "nature-oriented and privacy-oriented identity." The transformation of identity is illustrated by women's statements, which come from casual interviews conducted by the author  with 18 women who chose home as their birthplace. The analysis shows that this is a group of mothers who have a non-stereotypical perception of the reality of motherhood and consciously shape their identity as mothers, taking control of birth.

Conscious celebration of birth and conscious identity creation by "non-standard mothers"- mothers giving birth at home, confronts us with the question: Have we not lost something important in terms of the development of maternity care and technology?

Keywords:

home birth, identity, turning points, motherhood



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Domańska , U. (2025). About the Identity and Turning Points in the Lives of Women who Chose Home as Their Birthplace. Biografistyka Pedagogiczna [Biographical Studies in Education], 10(2), 505–530. https://doi.org/10.36578/BP.2025.10.09

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"Biografistyka Pedagogiczna" received funding for the years 2022-2024 from the funds of the Minister of Education and Science under the programme „Rozwój Czasopism Naukowych”.

Project duration: 2023-2024.

The amount of co-financing is 65 992,00 PLN

Contract number: RCN/SP/0434/2021/1