Giving Birth to Children and Mothers

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Giving Birth to Children and Mothers

• Transformations of Gender
• Week 14
• Juliet Rayment

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Birth-day

• Homebirth a debate!
• Womens experiences of birth
• Obstetricians and midwives
• Resistance and campaigns for change
• The futurewho knows?

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The Homebirth Debate
Homebirth
Hospital birth
vs.
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Womens experiencesAuthoritative Knowledge

• Technology is seen as superior to nature
• An attempt to control an unpredictable process
• e.g. Friedman Curve

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Control and decision-making

• Control and autonomy are crucial to women having
  a positive experience of birth even with
  intervention (Fox and Worts)
• In what ways might technology empower birthing
  women?

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Im aware when Im measuring a womans fundus,
Im not freeI want it to measure what its
supposed to measure on the chart erm, I dont
want to have to send her in because its a little
bit bigger or its a little bit small. I want to
protect her, I want to protect her from feeling
worried. I mean its ridiculous, I mean you can
know if a babys too big or too small, just by
looking at a woman when shes lying down and you
know how many weeks she is, you know if shes too
big or too small, usually, you know.
(Mia, midwife, interview 30.06.2005)
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Obstetricians and midwivesNegotiating
professional boundaries

• Normal vs. abnormal
• All pregnancies now fall under medical
  management and are normal only in retrospect. By
  this logic, the midwife as practitioner in her
  own right is defined out of existence. (Kirkham,
  1986).
• Providing woman-centred care within a high-tech
  environment

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Resistance and campaigning for change

• Stay or go?
• 2325 midwives left the profession between 1999
  and 2000
• Ball et al. (2002) Why do midwives leave? and
• (2006) Why do midwives stay?
• Independent midwives
• Organised resistance can be politically
  influential but at a personal cost
• Subversion in the workplace an alternative to
  public, organised campaigns.

9

• Im quite quiet about what I think, I dont tell
  and lot of people because I dontits like this
  midwife that I know shes been quite vocal in
  what she believes in and what she thinks and its
  like everybodys waiting for her to fail and when
  they the midwife fail theyre just going to
  clap their hands and be really pleased.
• (Mabel, midwife, interviewed 13.07.05)

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Campaigns for continuity of care

• Government rhetoric vs. reality
• Changing Childbirth 1993 the difficulties of
  implementation
• Independent Midwives Association Community
  Midwifery Model
• Association of Radical Midwives (ARM)
• Taking midwifery back to the roots
• Re-skilling midwives
• ukmidwifery yahoo group
• Association for Improvements in the Maternity
  Services (AIMS)
• Pressure group
• Offers advice to women

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The Futurewho knows?

• The death of midwifery?
• The implementation of one-to-one midwifery care
  across the country?
• The embrace of technology as a welcome part of
  normal birth?
• The further development of the conveyor belt
  birthing unit to cut costs?
• The empowerment of all women in birthbut by what
  means?

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Links

• Association of Radical Midwives
• www.radmid.demon.co.uk
• Independent Midwives Association
• www.independentmidwives.org.uk
• Association for improvements in the Maternity
  Services
• www.aims.org.uk

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References

• Ball, L., P. Curtis and M. Kirkham (2002). .Why
  do Midwives Leave? Report of the Women.s
  Informed Childbearing and Health Research Group.
  London, Royal College of Midwives. Online.
  Available at
• www.rcm.org.uk/data/info_centre/layout_index.html.
  
• Cahill, H. A. (2001) 'Male appropriation and
  medicalization of childbirth an historical
  analysis', Journal of Advanced Nursing 33(3)
  334-342.
• Kirkham, M. (1986). A Feminist Perspective in
  Midwifery. Feminist Practice in Womens Health
  Care. C. Webb. Chichester, John Wiley and Sons
  35-49.
• Witz, A. (1992) Professions and Patriarchy,
  London, Routledge. (See quote from British
  Medical Journal 1873 354 on p.111)