Abstract

In this article, we approach childbirth through the lens of the “fungal turn,” using fungal mycelial networks as a conceptual and metaphorical resource for rethinking birth as a relational experience of collective care. Like fungi, which thrive through mutualistic, multispecies relationships, childbirth unfolds within dense networks of biological, social, and ecological connections; between pregnant person and fetus, caregivers, communities, and environments. We draw on our own contrasting childbirth experiences -one shaped by obstetric violence and the need for hyper-vigilant control, the other by trust, safety, and the capacity to surrender- to illustrate how different models of care either reinforce the logic of autonomous, isolated, and bounded birthing subjects or, in contrast, highlight their vulnerability, interconnectedness, and permeability. Our analysis combines a descriptive phenomenological approach, to convey the lived experience of birth in its sensory, embodied immediacy, with a hermeneutical phenomenological approach, which situates and interprets these experiences within the broader cultural and relational frameworks that shape them. Phenomenological insights on intercorporeality challenge the idea of the autonomous subject, reframing subjectivity as emerging through inherently embodied and interconnected engagements with others and the world. In this framework, the fungal metaphor illuminates how the weaving of interdependence unsettles dominant modern conceptions of agency and individuation, offering new ways to imagine what constitutes a positive birth.