Article
Learning to (be) attend(ed). Doing homebirth bodies in German midwifery care
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Authors
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Annekatrin Skeide
- University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), Amsterdam, Netherland
| Published: | February 13, 2018 |
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Outline
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Background: In midwifery and anthropological research bodies in homebirth settings are defined as ‘natural’ [1]. Social support from midwives during homebirth facilitates the ‘natural’ body to function [2]. Simultaneously, midwifery care is characterized in opposition to medical-technical obstetrics [3]. On the one hand, however, midwives’ attendances is neither a-medical nor a-technological even in homebirth settings [4], on the other hand suggests the idea of an socially supported, biological determined body homebirth care would primarily consist of keeping the body from being disturbed [5].
Aim: Referring to my ethnographical material, I would like to show that homebirths are complex socio-material practices. I thereby find answers to the question: Which bodies emerge in which kind of socio-material practices?
Methods: Between February 2015 and March 2016 I accompanied midwives in a clinic, two birthplaces and private homes in Germany. I conducted participant observation, ethnographic conversations and structured interviews. I followed grounded theory methodology and situational analysis for data collection and analysis [6].
Results: I describe how midwives, women and children are disposed and dispose to attend and to being attended. Becoming attend-able takes place in specific, intimate, homebirth surroundings, and includes particular techniques (feeling the woman’s and the child’s bodies, reading bodies, heartbeat listening), technologies (Doppler fetal monitor) and things (chairs, mats, balls). The practices I show bring about the sensing, the counteractive and the ambiguous body-in-becoming.
Conclusion: Investigating midwifery practices, in which bodies are situated and embedded in a material surrounding, allows for less normative, but instead descriptive approaches to midwifery practices and therefore, doing practice-oriented research [7].
Ethical criteria and conflict of interests: This study was submitted to an ethics committee. It is funded by a doctoral scholarship Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. There is no conflict of interest.
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