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Publications (34)
Being pregnant beyond one’s estimated due date is a relatively common experience and requires complex decisions about whether to induce labour or wait for spontaneous onset. We report a qualitative study undertaken in the UK in 2016. We interviewed fifteen women and eleven more took part in an online focus group. Using thematic analysis, resistance...
Being pregnant beyond one’s estimated due date is a relatively common experience and requires complex decisions about whether to induce labour or wait for spontaneous onset. We report a qualitative study undertaken in the UK in 2016. We interviewed fifteen women and eleven more took part in an online focus group. Using thematic analysis, resistance...
OBJECTIVE: To describe and summarize the current body of evidence on the subject of birth plans to develop a research agenda.
METHOD: A narrative review was undertaken to offer a comprehensive overview of themes emerging from previous research in this area.
FINDINGS: Thirty-five papers from 33 studies were retrieved and grouped into three main them...
The launch of a new childbirth journal is a cause for celebration. It provides an opportunity for researchers, service users, clinicians, and maternity service stakeholders to get their messages out quickly and more effectively at a time when maternity provision worldwide is changing
rapidly. In this editorial, we flag up what we believe are the mo...
Alternative institutional settings have been established for the care of pregnant women who prefer and require little or no medical intervention. The settings may offer care throughout pregnancy and birth, or only during labour; they may be part of hospitals or freestanding entities. Specially designed labour rooms include bedroom-like rooms, ambie...
Introduction and historyMedicalisation of childbirthBacklashModels of childbirthPlace of birth debateContemporary challengesConclusion
References
IntroductionLabour and interpersonal relationshipsAttitudes and beliefsRedefining safety – human nestingComponents of nesting‘Mother-like’ careSketching matrescenceConclusion
References
IntroductionOrigins of the progress paradigmOrganisational factorsAn emergent critiqueRhythms in early labourRhythms in mid labourAlternative skills for assessing labour‘Being with’, not ‘doing to’ labouring womenDefinition of second stageTime and fetal healthEarly pushingAttitudes and philosophyConclusion
References
Intrapartum care has undergone profound changes over the past fifty years. Essential Midwifery Practice: Intrapartum Care takes a broad sweep to examine these changes and their intersection with midwifery, in particular their impact on the midwife's role during labour and birth. It is an invaluable guide for all midwives. Essential Midwifery Practi...
The experience of childbirth is one of the most corporeal of the human condition. Against a backdrop of profound change in the milieu of birthing over the past 30 years, especially in the developed world, a number of discourses now compete for the status of the safest, most fulfilling birth experience. Supporters of biomedical and 'natural' approac...
In high-resource settings around 20% of maternal deaths are attributed to women who fail to receive adequate antenatal care. Epidemiological evidence suggests many of these women belong to marginalised groups often living in areas of relative deprivation. Reasons for inadequate antenatal attendance have yet to be fully evaluated.
To identify the fa...
IntroductionBackgroundA new way of seeingExamples of good practice: Project LuzExamples in practice: UK freestanding birth centresConclusion
References
Feature 'The time is right... for a comprehensive review, not simply in legislative and statutory terms, but in a contextual appraisal of the meaning and outworking of the role in practice environments.' The role of the midwife: time for a review Reader in midwifery Denis Walsh and research fellow in midwifery Mary Steen at the University of Centra...
An ethnographic study of a free-standing birth centre uncovered a site of intense contestation. Two prominent childbirth discourses attempting to inscribe their orthodoxies on staff and women users encountered stern and persistent resistance. Using postmodern theory, this resistance is conceptualised as nomadic activity, as space is made at the mar...
This article is not available through ChesterRep. This article describes and discusses an conference paper given at the Dia Internacional do Enfermeiro de Saude Materna e Obstetrica, Viseu, Portugal. It highlights that many childbearing women in the 21st century now fear birth and the RCM's concerns that both women and maternity care professionals...
To explore the culture, beliefs, values, customs and practices around the birth process within a free-standing birth centre (FSBC).
Ethnography.
A birth centre situated in the midlands of England.
Women attending the centre, midwives and maternity-care assistants (MCAs) working at the centre.
Women in the study seemed to invoke intuitive nesting-re...
In the process of undertaking a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies of free-standing midwife-led units, the authors of this paper encountered a number of methodologically and epistemologically unresolved issues. One of these related to the assessment of the quality of qualitative research. In an iterative approach to scoping this issue, we identi...
Across the world, concern is being expressed about the rising rates of birth interventions. As a result, there is growing interest in alternative organisational models of maternity care. Most of the research to date on these models has examined clinical outcomes. This paper, discussing key findings from an ethnographic study of a free-standing birt...
Paternalism in the wider health services, though frowned on by many practitioners and consumers, has been widespread in the past and remains endemic in some areas in the present. This may be because it has a benevolent face: the desire to protect the public from information or situations that the professionals deem potentially injurious to them.
Background: Home-like birth settings have been established in or near conventional labour wards for the care of pregnant women who prefer and require little or no medical intervention during labour and birth.
Objectives: Primary: to assess the effects of care in a home-like birth environment compared to care in a conventional labour ward. Secondary...
This paper discusses the purpose and stages of meta-synthesis and the epistemological status of knowledge generated from the technique. Particular attention is paid to exploring the contested areas of the method that remain.
There is a growing interest in meta-synthesis as a technique for generating new insights and understanding from qualitative h...
Background:
Home-like birth settings have been established in or near conventional labour wards for the care of pregnant women who prefer and require little or no medical intervention during labour and birth.
Objectives:
Primary: to assess the effects of care in a home-like birth environment compared to care in a conventional labour ward. Second...
Over the last two decades, childbirth worldwide has been increasingly concentrated in large centralized hospitals, with a parallel trend toward more birth interventions. At the same time in several countries, interest in midwife-led care and free-standing birth centers has steadily increased. The objective of this review is to establish the current...
Headings like the one above tend to grab attention, but it is not a sound basis for informed opinion. The story appeared on a midwifery e-mail network and was related to a study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (Gottvall et al, 2004). A birth-centre midwife was reporting that the study's findings was likely to influence...
Expounds on the relatively new technique of meta-synthesis which is methodologically under developed and under theorised in the health research literature. One of a handful of international papers in nursing and midwifery in this field. Invited to speak at international meeting for Cochrane Qualitative Research Collaboration Group
To explore the experience of a known midwife for labour and birth as provided through the partnership caseload model of care in women who had a previous baby under an alternative system of care.
A qualitative study using an ethnographic approach. Data were collected by tape-recorded interviews.
The maternity unit at Leicester Royal Infirmary NHS Tr...