Although childbirth is fundamentally involved with the issue of women's bodies, it is also involved with such social values as politics, economics, medicine, and other phenomena characteristic of a particular time and culture. In this article I divide Japanese society and childbirth into pre-modern, modern, and postmodern phases, with special emphasis on the postmodern phase. I use the word "postmodern" to denote visible changes in childbirth and midwifery that began to occur around 1990 - changes that distinguish it from modern hospital birth. I conclude that postmodern midwifery is a reaction to and a consequence of modern hospital birth, which failed to satisfy a large number of women's needs. In this sense, postmodern midwifery could rightly be said to be the offspring of modern hospital birth.