Julie Roberts

Verified

Julie verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Julie verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• BSc, MA, PhD
• Research Fellow at University of Leicester

Background: In-person data collection has long been considered the ‘gold standard’ for qualitative data collection. Societal changes and the rapid increase in the use of remote methods during the Covid-19 pandemic intensified debate about the limitations and opportunities of remote data collection, while reigniting questions about data quality and...

It is widely agreed that collaboration with people with lived experience of specific health conditions or health services is both a moral imperative and a utility to improve research quality, validity and impact. However, there is little agreement about how to practise public involvement. In this article, we describe the formation and work of the N...

Synopsis In 2020, the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced qualitative health and social care researchers to rapidly convert to remote methods of data collection (i.e. methods of collecting research data when the researcher and participant are not together in the same space). In a post-COVID-19 research landscape, use of remote qualitative...

Employing a material discursive approach, this article deconstructs advice within published guides to pregnancy and birth written by men for men. We deconstruct the representation of feelings and emotions in men during this period rejecting essentialist and social constructionist views of gendered emotionality. We find the texts are saturated with...

Objectives: To investigate midwifery students’ experiences of viewing childbirth on mainstream factual television and to explore implications for student career intentions and potential pedagogical uses of television excerpts in midwifery education. Design: Twenty-two undergraduate midwifery students at one of two universities took place in focus...

This educational project aimed at involving undergraduate midwifery students as co-investigators in research studies, with the primary aim of acquiring first-hand experience of operationalising fundamental aspects of the research process by working with established researchers. The secondary aim of the project was to evaluate students' experience o...

Objective: To explore and synthesise evidence of women's information needs, decision-making and experiences of membrane sweeping to promote spontaneous labour. Design: A systematic review following the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) meta-aggregative approach to qualitative evidence synthesis. Relevant databases were searched for literature publis...

Factual and reality television shows that depict childbirth are both commercially successful and controversial. Social debate focuses on the potential implications for women’s experiences of birth and their health. This scoping review critically analyses published literature to assess the state of knowledge about the influence of factual and realit...

Background: Early labour care presents a challenge for maternity services and is a cause of dissatisfaction for women planning birth in an obstetric or midwifery unit who may feel unsupported or unwelcome at their planned place of birth. Little is known about the perspectives of men who support their partner during early labour. Methods: Opportu...

This article presents reflections on the process of collecting interview data about fathers’ experiences of ‘early labour’. Early labour is the first phase of labour, defined in textbooks by regular contractions and cervical dilation of up to 4 cm. Women are typically encouraged to stay at home during early labour and only travel to hospital when t...

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...

Introduction This qualitative research study explored the research question of whether midwives in the United States and the United Kingdom see potential benefits and challenges of using video‐calling technology to assess and support women in early labor. Early labor calls to maternity units are a locus of dissatisfaction for childbearing women. Al...

This paper explores birth representations through a content analysis of two seasons of the UK program, One Born Every Minute (Channel 4, 2010- ) (OBEM). Reality television (RTV) has been a fertile ground for the mediation of birth but has also stoked controversy among feminist critics and the birth community about how birth is represented and the i...

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...

Background Decisions made in early labor influence the outcomes of childbirth for women and infants. Telephone assessment during labor, the current norm in many settings, has been found to be a source of dissatisfaction for women and can present challenges for midwives. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore midwives’ views on the potenti...

Childbirth is highly visible on television at a time when few people see birth in the family or community and access to antenatal education is declining. One Born Every Minute (OBEM) is the most high-profile example of this programming in the United Kingdom. Now on its ninth series, the series won a BAFTA in its first year and now exports programme...

The premise that ultrasound technologies provide reassurance for pregnant women is well-rehearsed. However, there has been little research about how this reassurance is articulated and understood by both expectant mothers and health care professionals. In this article, we draw on two qualitative UK studies to explore the salience of ultrasound reas...

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...

Women in the UK are advised to stay at home during ‘early labour’ – defined clinically as before cervical dilation of 4cm - and to only come to hospital when in ‘active labour’. For women in heterosexual relationships, at a time when men’s active engagement with pregnancy and birth is a matter of NHS policy and subject to cultural imperative, this...

Medical sociologists and anthropologists have studied the social significance of obstetric ultrasound for families but little is known about how women and families make use of commercially available ultrasound scans. This article draws on interviews with women who booked a scan with a commercial company in the UK. For some women, commercial ultraso...

The commercial availability of ultrasound scans for pregnant women has been controversial yet little is known about why women make use of such services. This article reports on semi-structured interviews with women in the UK who have booked a commercial scan, focusing on the reasons women gave for booking commercially provided ultrasound during a l...

/st>This paper presents the development of the Warwick Patient Experiences Framework (WaPEF) and describes how it informed the development of the NICE Guidance and Quality Standard, 'Patient experience in adult NHS services: improving the experience of care for people using adult NHS services'. /st>The WaPEF was developed using a thematic qualitati...

The book offers an array of case studies that examine the diffusion of 3/4D ultrasound images beyond the clinic and the implications of this new technology for biopolitics in the European and American context. With attention to the non-diagnostic and commercial use of 3/4D images, the impact of 3/4D ultrasound within the abortion debate, and new cl...

Commercial companies market 4D ultrasound scans to expectant parents for the stated purpose of reassurance, to promote bonding, and to get babys first picture. This article describes in detail the process of commercial 4D scanning in the UK, paying particular attention to the discursive exchanges in the scan room. It is argued that sonographers and...

Over the past decade, the role of anatomical teaching in the undergraduate medical curriculum has changed considerably. At some medical schools, active dissection of cadaveric specimens is gradually being replaced by prosection-based methods and other resources such as e-learning. Warwick Medical School has recently obtained a large collection of p...

Women's perspectives on breast screening (mammography and breast awareness) were explored in interviews with midlife women sampled for diversity of background and health experience. Attending mammography screening was considered a social obligation despite women's fears and experiences of discomfort. Women gave considerable legitimacy to mammograph...

Technology is advancing rapidly; especially in the field of robotics. The purpose of this study was to examine children's perception and interpretation of robots and robot behaviour. The study was divided into two phases: phase one involved 144 children (aged 7-8) from two primary schools drawing a picture of a robot and then writing a story about...

Feminist scholars have long argued that the pregnant body is erased – both literally and discursively – from mainstream foetal representations. Janemaree Maher argues that the placenta, as point of distinction and connection between pregnant women and foetuses, has the radical potential to refigure understandings of pregnant embodiment and subjecti...

Foetal images have been central to the medicalized abortion debate since the 1960s. Feminists have extensively analysed such pictures, arguing that the pregnant body is separated from the foetus and erased from view, and that the rights of women and foetuses are set in opposition. In this article I introduce the latest image in this debate, the 3D...