The period 1880–1990 saw dramatic transformations in women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in the Western world. The most prominent was the change of location of childbirth, from the home to the hospital. This era also saw the establishment and public acceptance of scientific medicine in Western society, including infertility, antenatal and childbirth services. In the twentieth century the health of mothers as well as their newborn babies became the subject of much political and public concern and attention. From the 1930s, there was a steep and constant decline in maternal mortality and later in perinatal mortality. The relationship between all these changes has been the subject of immense historical analysis, with authors adopting very different perspectives, and the ways in which the narrative has been told has altered markedly in line with the wider social and cultural changes of the late twentieth century. Much of the writing from the 1970s came from a feminist political perspective. The vast expansion of the discipline of the history of medicine over subsequent decades has seen others enter the field from a less ideological perspective. The authors of this volume fall into the latter category. Whilst drawing on that earlier literature (outlined below), these essays offer fresh perspectives, contributing to a broader, more nuanced understanding of the cultural, social and political history of pregnancy and childbirth in the modern Western world.