Introduction: Mass media is one of the few opportunities a woman has to see childbirth before she experiences it by herself. Childbirth in the mass media is often portrayed in an unrealistic way which influences the behaviour and actions of individuals in the birthing process. Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to investigate the representation of childbirth in mass media, based on a review of the scientific literature. The objective is to find out how childbirth is represented in the mass media, what factors influence this representation and what the consequences of this representation of childbirth are for women and their experiences of childbirth. Methods: The descriptive method of work was used in the thesis, focusing on a review of professional and scientific literature of the childbirth representation in the mass media. The online bibliographic databases DiKUL, EBSCO Information Services, Google Scholar, ProQuest, PubMed, ResearchGate, ScienceDirect and SpringerLink were used from December 2nd 2021 to March 8th 2022. The advanced search function was used. The criteria for selecting the scientific literature were relevance and pertinence of the content and full accessibility to the content of the sources in Slovenian or English, with a publication time between 2012 and 2022. Results: The literature review included 26 studies that met all the criteria. Most of the studies were cross-sectional, with descriptive methods and source analysis being the most commonly used. Representations of childbirth in the mass media set the norm for medicalised childbirth, alternatives are rarely and ambiguously portrayed. This may be significantly influenced by midwifery's engagement with media producers. Mass media representations of childbirth influence women's expectations and choices during pregnancy and childbirth and often provoke fear. Discussion and conclusion: There are many gaps and missing information in representations of childbirth, offered by the mass media. It is important to raise awareness among women, midwifery and obstetric professionals and media producers to act critically and responsibly in the field of representation of childbirth in the prevailing mass media, by disseminating credible and expert information that will enable women to have positive and knowledge-based childbirth practices, without unnecessary fear.
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