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dc.contributor.authorSmall, KA
dc.contributor.authorSidebotham, M
dc.contributor.authorFenwick, J
dc.contributor.authorGamble, J
dc.date.accessioned2021-06-10T06:00:04Z
dc.date.available2021-06-10T06:00:04Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.identifier.issn1871-5192
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.wombi.2021.05.001
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/405035
dc.description.abstractBackground: The capacity for midwifery to improve maternity care is under-utilised. Midwives have expressed limits on their autonomy to provide quality care in relation to intrapartum fetal heart rate monitoring. Aim: To explore how the work of midwives and obstetricians was textually structured by policy documents related to intrapartum fetal heart rate monitoring. Methods: Institutional Ethnography, a critical qualitative approach was used. Data were collected in an Australian hospital with a central fetal monitoring system. Midwives (n = 34) and obstetricians (n = 16) with experience working with the central fetal monitoring system were interviewed and observed. Policy documents were collected and analysed. Findings: Midwives’ work was strongly structured by policy documents that required escalation of care for any CTG abnormality. Prior to being able to escalate care, midwives were often interrupted by other clinicians uninvited entry into the room in response to the CTG seen at the central monitoring station. While the same collection of documents guided the work of both obstetricians and midwives, they generated the expectation that midwives must perform certain tasks while obstetricians may perform others. Midwifery work was textually invisible. Discussion and conclusion: Our findings provide a concrete example of the way policy documents both reflect and generate power imbalances in maternity care. Obstetric ways of knowing and doing are reinforced within these documents and continue to diminish the visibility and autonomy of midwifery. Midwifery organisations are well placed to co-lead policy development and reform in collaboration with maternity consumer and obstetric organisations.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherElsevier BV
dc.relation.ispartofjournalWomen and Birth
dc.subject.fieldofresearchBiomedical and clinical sciences
dc.subject.fieldofresearchReproductive medicine
dc.subject.fieldofresearchMidwifery
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode32
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode3215
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode4204
dc.subject.keywordsMidwifery
dc.subject.keywordsethnography
dc.subject.keywordsfetal monitoring
dc.subject.keywordsguidelines
dc.subject.keywordsobstetrics
dc.titleMidwives must, obstetricians may: An ethnographic exploration of how policy documents organise intrapartum fetal monitoring practice
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dcterms.bibliographicCitationSmall, KA; Sidebotham, M; Fenwick, J; Gamble, J, Midwives must, obstetricians may: An ethnographic exploration of how policy documents organise intrapartum fetal monitoring practice, Women and Birth, 2021
dcterms.dateAccepted2021-05-16
dcterms.licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.date.updated2021-06-09T05:11:20Z
dc.description.versionAccepted Manuscript (AM)
gro.description.notepublicThis publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.
gro.rights.copyright© 2021 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
gro.hasfulltextFull Text
gro.griffith.authorGamble, Jenny A.


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