Reclaiming Agency in the Caesarean Birth Story

Reading Birth Pleasure in the Colombian Childbirth Anthology Partos

Abstract

This article focusses on birth narratives from the 2024 Colombian anthology Partos (Childbirth), in which the body in pleasure functions as a protagonist in the medical space and as an instrument of resistance. Renata Serna Hosie’s “Nadie sabe lo que puede un cuerpo” (“Nobody Knows What a Body Can Do”), María Paula Molina’s “Aprendí a ser hija cuando fui madre” (“I Learned to Be a Daughter When I Became a Mother”), and Ana Lucía Daza Ferrer’s “Abril nació en mayo” (“April Was Born in May”) chronicles humanized caesarean births, demonstrating that agential childbirth and birth pleasure are possible in a hospitalized or medically-assisted birth. In these birth stories, the medical space becomes a secondary character, allowing the birthing subject to assume the protagonist role while challenging the typical medicalized version of a caesarean birth. In demystifying these births for their readers, all three authors portray them through the birthing body, prioritizing it, as well as its experiences and feelings, over the medical procedure, which reminds us that birth pleasure can and should be part of the caesarean birth story.