Marjorie Murray Department of Sociology Pontificia Universidad Cat ´ olica de Chile Childbirth in Santiago de Chile: Stratification, Intervention, and Child Centeredness On the basis of ethnographic work with women from different economic and edu- cational backgrounds in Santiago, I describe the experiences of labor and birth from the point of view of women’s priorities, socioeconomic constraints, and relation- ships with the medical system. I specifically focus on their desires expressed during the late prenatal period and their narratives of the actual birth. Class and the differ- ences in opportunities resulting from educational and class inequalities melt down into near invisibility as vulnerability rises and women become increasingly subjected to medical decision making. The long-standing Chilean focus on child centeredness, while shown to benefit bonding, can work to obliterate women’s own desires and choices by encouraging them to “sacrifice their all” for the sake of the baby. This kind of sacrifice defines the meaning of the maternal body in Chile. I suggest further analysis of these factors is essential for an understanding of the hypermedicalized Chilean context. [Chile, childbirth, medicalization, motherhood] Some anthropologists have suggested that understanding the relationship be- tween medicalization and women requires a multidimensional approach, one that considers technology as a product of historical, cultural, and political contexts to which women respond (Lock and Kaufert 1998:2). Others highlight the relationship among technology, medicine, medical systems, women’s bodies, and body politics (Davis-Floyd 2001, 2004; Martin 2001) and the need to account for women’s dif- ferentiated access to knowledge (including the technical knowledge and ideology underlying medical and hospital procedures; see Esposito 1999; Lazarus 1994). The anthropology of birth and reproduction has demonstrated the need for a more comprehensive consideration of cultural differences, power structures, meanings, and practices of childbirth in different contexts (e.g., Jordan 1993; MacCormack 1994), and the need for long-term studies that consider birth within social, medical– cultural, and political economic contexts of maternity care that tackle both women’s priorities and the factors such as pain, fear, stress, and anxiety in context (Gamble et al. 2007:338–339). Martin (2001) calls attention to relevant differences in birth outcome and meanings that depend on differences in race, ethnicity, and class. In this article, I reflect on the pregnancy and birth experiences of a group of women of different classes, income, and education levels in Santiago de Chile, a MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Vol. 26, Issue 3, pp. 319–337, ISSN 0745- 5194, online ISSN 1548-1387. C  2012 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1387.2012.01221.x 319