Homebirth as Systems-Challenging Praxis
Knowledge, Power, and Intimacy in the Birthplace
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5454878 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melissa Cheyney (0000-0001-5672-3353, Oregon State University, corresponding author), Melissa J Cheyney (Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA, .) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 254-267 |
| Publication date | 2008-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Health Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1049-7323 • E-ISSN: 1552-7557 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1049732307312393 |
| PMID | 18216344 |
| OpenAlex | W2122420111 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 44 |
| References cited | 30 |
In this article, I examine the processes and motivations involved when women in the United States choose to circumvent the dominant obstetric care paradigm by delivering at home with a group of care providers called direct-entry midwives. Using grounded theory, participant observation, and open-ended, semistructured interviewing, I collected and analyzed homebirth narratives from a theoretical sample of women ( n = 50) in two research locales. Findings interpreted from the perspective of critical medical anthropology suggest that women who choose to birth at home negotiate fears associated with the 'just in case something bad happens' argument that forms the foundation for hospital birth rationales through complex individual and social processes. These involve challenging established forms of authoritative knowledge, valuing alternative and more embodied or intuitive ways of knowing, and knowledge sharing through the informed consent process. Adherence to subjugated discourses combined with lived experiences of personal power and the cultivation of intimacy in the birthplace fuel homebirth not only as a minority social movement, but also as a form of systems-challenging praxis
Epistemology · Home birth · Interview · Narrative · Negotiation · Participant observation · Praxis · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Social Psychology
Kangaroo Mother Care
Se estava tudo bem, porque é que eu havia de ir a uma obstetra
Co-Production and Co-Creation
The riddle of the extreme ends of the birth experience
Experience of decision-making for home breech birth
Negotiating risky bodies
To what extent are women free to choose where to give birth? How discourses of risk, blame and responsibility influence birth place decisions
Risk resistance
Motherhood and Child Healthcare Experiences Among a Unique PVTG of West Bengal, India
Maternity Care Preferences for Future Pregnancies Among United States Childbearers
Intimacy, home, and emotions in the era of the pandemic
Technologies of gender and childbirth choices
Service Personalization as a Response to Noncompliance with Routine Childhood Vaccination
Anthropology
The Mothers on Respect (MOR) index
Faire naître à la maison en France
Practising Intimate Labour
Not just mechanical birthing bodies
Variations in Lay Health Theories
Five Coffin Nails to Informed Consent
Giving Birth to Another Child
Enacting Homebirth Bodies
Navigating the role of emotions in expertise
Reflexividad, autonomía y consentimiento. Un análisis de las experiencias de mujeres en la búsqueda de un parto fisiológico en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
Navigating Social and Institutional Obstacles
Nutritional Counseling in Midwifery and Obstetric Practice
Empowered or patronized? The role of emotions in policies and professional discourses on birth care
Reclaiming the Body, Birthing at Home
Humility, Autonomy, and Birth as a Site of Politics
Experiences as Actors
The best laid plans? Women's choices, expectations and experiences in childbirth
Informing Evidence
Homebirth Transfers in the United States
Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Genetic Counselors and Genetic Testing Among Certified Professional Midwives in Vermont
Independent Homebirth Midwives in France
Doing homebirth like a man? Constructions of masculinity in South African men's narratives of homebirth
Empowering women through the positive birth movement
Essentialism as a form of resistance
Giving birth in Volos, Greece
Data Display in Qualitative Research
Always, already-medicalized
Reinscribing the Birthing Body
On the Margins of the Periphery
Embracing the Obstetric Imaginary
In labor
Birth in four cultures
Women's ways of knowing
The Discovery of Grounded Theory
The Subject and Power
"I Was Afraid Someone like You… an Outsider… Would Misunderstand"
Losing the Plot
The safety of home birth
Discovering’ chronic illness
Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists
Developing Focus Group Research
Toward a critical medical anthropology
War Stories
The technocratic body
Reinventing medical anthropology
A critique of the ideological and political positions of the Willy Brandt report and the WHO Alma ata declaration
The rhetoric of "natural" in natural childbirth
Fuzziness and Phenomenology in Ethnological Research
Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge in Midwifery and Homebirth
Beyond the Ivory Tower
Chronic illness as biographical disruption
Illness and narrative
The narrative constitution of identity
| Unique citing works | 44 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,44 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2024 (17) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 42 |