City Research Online

Abstract

Objective: Through the critical application of social theory, this paper will scrutinise how the operations of risk management help to constitute midwives’ understandings of childbirth in a particular way.

Design and setting: Drawing from rich ethnographic data, collected in the southeast of England, the paper presents empirical evidence to critically explore how institutional concerns around risk and risk management impact upon the way midwives can legitimately imagine and manage labour and childbirth. Observational field notes, transcribed interviews with various midwives, along with material culture in the form of documentary evidence will be used to explore the unintended consequences of clinical governance and its risk management technologies.

Key conclusions: Through this analysis the fear factor of risk in midwifery talk and practice will be introduced to provide an insight into how risk management impacts midwifery practice in the UK.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2016, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Risk, Midwifery, Childbirth, Labour, Clinical governance
Subjects:	R Medicine > RG Gynecology and obstetrics
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Midwifery & Radiography
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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