Abstract. – This article focuses on the narratives developed around home births as a model of care. By setting it in a framework that, by different means and mechanisms, progressively excludes midwives from assisting births, emphasis is placed on discourses and practical criteria used by those who devote themselves to home births in Andalusia. In particular, it explores the relationship between the emergence of home births as a movement, and the midwives actually working within this field. By doing so two trends are outlined, which embody different views of pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and more generally, health,
bodies and life. [Spain, Andalusia, medical anthropology, home birth, midwifery]