Ethnographic exploration of women's, m/w's and Dr's beliefs
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An ethnographic exploration of women’s, midwives and obstetrician’s beliefs around maternal physical activity in the first stage of labour
IRAS ID
148770
Contact name
Beverley K Jervis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Salford
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
The majority of births in the UK occur in hospital in obstetric-led maternity units which are influenced by a bio-medical model of care with its associated protocols and guidelines. This often isolates women from an experiential and instinctive knowledge of birth. Maternal Physical Activity (MPA) during the first stage of labour is an aspect of labour behaviour available to most women, and which women have been observed to use instinctively when they are able to labour undisturbed. Research forms the basis for evidence-informed hospital protocols and national guidelines. The NICE intrapartum guidelines and the Cochrane centre for systematic reviews highlighting the lack of high level evidence to support or restrict MPA in the first stage of labour. However, other sources around MPA exist, but do not form part of the knowledge base recognised by NICE and Cochrane. How knowledge about MPA is acquired, structured and justified by women, midwives and obstetricians and how this knowledge informs beliefs around the use of MPA in labour is unknown. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore women's, midwives’ and obstetricians’ beliefs around MPA in labour, to compare and contrast these beliefs to establish if and how they differ and to determine how such beliefs influence the care of women in labour.
A Focused Ethnographic (FE) approach will be used which obtains data from interviews only. Data will be collected from 10 women, 10 midwives and 10 obstetricians. The data will be analysed by thematic analysis to develop an in-depth understanding of what MPA means to a small number of participants who work and use the NHS maternity services in Bolton, England (UK).
The findings will identify if these beliefs affect care received and given and explore their relationship to the theoretical models of maternity care as part of a PhD project.REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/1275
Date of REC Opinion
25 Nov 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion