Negotiating the Normal Birth
Jenny Gleisner
2013
Linköping studies in arts and science, No. 595
Negotiating the Normal Birth
Norms and Emotions in Midwifery Education
Jenny Gleisner
Pregnancies and childbirths are not just biological or medical events. Childbirths are also emotionally intense situations, not only for the par-ents-to-be but also for those who work in delivery care. In addition, preg-nancies and childbirths are sociocultural situations; there are norms about the normal birth.
This study investigates how future midwives learn about the interactive and emotional work involved in supporting women in delivery care. It focuses on norms about the normal birthing trajectory and on how a midwife should encounter patients’ feelings and handle her own feel-ings in a “proper” way. Based on observations of collaborative group discussions within Swedish university-based midwifery education, the study shows how students negotiate the appropriate feeling norms in normal birth, as well as in complicated and even tragic situations. In focus are their discussions on how to support the birthing women, their partners, and the babies, and the categorization work needed to recog-nize potential deviations from the normal birth.
Jenny Gleisner is a researcher at the Department of Thematic Studies – Technology and Social Change at Linköping University, Sweden. This is her Ph.D. thesis.
Linköping studies in arts and science, No. 595, 2013
The Department of Thematic Studies – Technology and Social Change Linköping University
581 83 Linköping, Sweden www.liu.se
