In Western societies, such as Italy, a positive representation of birth technologies as the main remedy to fight against the uncertainties of physiology and biological risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth has prevailed since the eighteenth century. This process has experienced a strengthening and an acceleration in the last fifty years. Although the (bio)medical discourse has replaced previous representations of childbirth-related risks, other risk categorizations, and search for remedies, have emerged and persist. Relying on the findings of a multi-sited ethnographic work focused on Italy, Senegal and the migratory experience from Senegal to Italy, this article investigates how the representation of childbirth-related risks changes in these three contexts. Working in a risk perception framework, I argue that birth technologies and medical interventions are understood by some groups of Italian women as a risk to be avoided compared to the possibility of experiencing a natural birth. At the same time, through an anthropological perspective, the article investigates how the relatively low level of medicalization in Senegal shapes a discourse on birth based on a very different understanding of health and risk. Unlike the biomedical discourse, childbirth-related risks in Senegal are only partially explained by the physical materiality of the birth process. Finally, stressing the strong interconnection between risk logics and material culture, the article analyses the multiple challenges connected to both the ‘fascination’ for technological births and the transfer of non-biomedical risk models from Senegal to Italy through the migratory process.

自18世纪以来，在诸如意大利这样的西方社会中，积极采用生育技术作为主要手段，以应对与怀孕和分娩有关的生理和生物风险的不确定性。在过去的五十年中，这一过程得到了加强和加速。尽管（生物）医学话语取代了以前有关分娩风险的描述，但其他风险分类以及寻求补救措施的出现和持续存在。依靠针对意大利，塞内加尔和从塞内加尔到意大利的迁徙经历的多地点人种志研究工作的发现，本文研究了在这三种情况下与分娩有关的风险的表示方式是如何变化的。在风险感知框架中工作，我认为，与某些经历自然分娩的可能性相比，某些意大利妇女群体将生育技术和医疗干预视为可以避免的风险。同时，从人类学的角度，本文研究了塞内加尔相对较低的医疗水平如何基于对健康和风险的完全不同的理解来塑造关于出生的论述。与生物医学论述不同，塞内加尔与分娩有关的风险仅部分由出生过程的物质重要性来解释。最后，强调风险逻辑与物质文化之间的紧密联系，