Introducing the Social Sciences for Midwifery Practice: Birthing in a Contemporary Society

Introducing the Social Sciences for Midwifery Practice makes clear the links between social, anthropological and psychological concepts, midwifery practice and women's experience of birth. Demonstrating how empathising with women and understanding the context in which they live can affect childbirth outcomes and experiences, this evidence-based text emphasises the importance of compassionate and humane care in midwifery practice.

Exploring midwifery as an art, as well as a science, the authors collected here make the case for midwives as professionals working 'with women' rather than as birth technicians, taking a purely competency-based approach to practice. The book incorporates a range of pedagogical features to enhance student learning, including overall chapter aims and learning outcomes, 'recommendations for practice', 'learning triggers' to encourage the reader to delve deeper and reflect on practice, 'application to practice' case studies which ensure that the theory is related to contemporary practice, and a glossary of terms. The chapters cover perspectives on birth from sociology; psychology; anthropology; law; social policy and politics. Other chapters address important issues such as disability, politics and sexuality.

Outlining relevant theory from the social sciences and clearly applying it to practice, this text is an essential read for all student midwives, registered midwives and doulas.

Patricia Lindsay RN, RM, MSc, PGCEA, DHC did her nurse training in London then trained as a midwife. She has been a practising midwife since 1974, and a midwifery teacher since 1991. She has worked in the UK and in the Sultanate of Oman. She was Lead Midwife for Education at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, until the end of August 2014. Her doctoral thesis was on incident reporting in maternity care and she has presented posters on this topic at national and international conferences. Her interests are patient safety in maternity care, women’s mental health and support-worker training.

Ian Peate EN(G) RN DipN (Lond) RNT BEd (Hons) MA (Lond) LLMbegan his nursing a career in 1981 at Central Middlesex Hospital, becoming an enrolled nurse working in an intensive care unit. He later undertook three years of student nurse training at Central Middlesex and Northwick Park Hospitals, becoming a staff nurse then a charge nurse. He has worked in nurse education since 1989. His key areas of interest are nursing practice and theory, men’s health, sexual health and HIV. Ian has published widely; he is Professor of Nursing and Head of School, School of Health Studies Gibraltar and Editor in Chief, British Journal of Nursing.