Author: Zalka Drglin
Author title: National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia 

Description: The birth environment, encompassing the entire built and designed space in which childbirth takes place, along with the people within it, influences how the woman giving birth feels – whether she experiences safety, connection, and relaxation, or fear, withdrawal, and threat. This, in turn, affects how she responds as an embodied being and how the childbirth progresses. Birth spaces, through their inherent messages, can range in effect from pathogenic – perceived as threatening or even hostile – to salutogenic, embodying the qualities of a ‘birth sanctuary’ that women need while giving birth. 

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