Ruth Sanders
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Ruth Sanders is a midwife currently involved with organisations supporting maternal and neonatal health including The Royal College of Midwives (RCM), Wellbeing of Women (WoW), Cavell Nurses’ Trust, and The University of East Anglia (UEA). She is a keen advocate for women sitting on her local Maternity Services Liaison Committee, keeping in touch with women and families experiences of maternity care with a view to improve services. When not working clinically she teaches in her role as Associate Tutor for the University of East Anglia, interviewing for both the long and short midwifery programs and offering a range of lectures and workshops in midwifery subjects and research methodology. She is involved in the Royal College of Midwives in a work capacity as Health and Safety Representative for her Trust, and was an invited collaborator on a pilot with the Design Council for the Better Births Initiative (2015-2016). She is also an ambassador for Cavell Nurses Trust, a charity assisting midwives, nurses and healthcare assistants at times of hardship. Ruth has had articles published in various professional journals including Birth: Issues in Perinatal Health, Women and Birth, British Journal of Midwifery, British Journal of Health Visiting and Midirs.
Women approach birth using various methods of preparation, drawing from healthcare providers and formal antenatal education but also from wide and diverse informal information sources (IISs). There is a dearth of understanding in midwifery practice about the ways women access information pertaining to birth via the internet, social media, apps and various support networks. The aim of this research was to identify how informal information sources influence women’s decision-making for birth.
Seven databases were searched with terms, including English language qualitative studies, with no date limitations. Studies were synthesised using an interpretive meta-ethnographic approach. Data were generated from fourteen studies from Great Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Four main themes were identified; Menu Birth, Information Heaven/Hell, Spheres of Support and Trust. For this presentation two of these themes; Menu Birth and Spheres of Support will be explored. These will be discussed, focusing on what this might mean for midwives in relation to preparing women for birth.
Women are not empty vessels at the outset of pregnancy, but bring a set of personal beliefs, formulated from images, narratives and informational encounters. Women express a sense of desire and expectation toward pregnancy and birth, arising from an internal unarticulated sense of ‘knowing’ what will happen. This stance, if considered as a “menu approach” to their forthcoming pregnancy and birth, is engaged with as though it were possible to pre-plan their desired experience and organise the type of birth with a determined sense of agency.
A generalised sense of professional lack is perceived by women through their information-seeking journeys. Choices to seek information were based on what women felt was lacking from professional interactions. The predominant feeling of ‘lack’ revolved around how women placed themselves in relation to trusting professional involvement and levels of trust placed in professional expertise as well as the amount of self-control women desired to exert on their experiences.
IISs and their influence on women’s final decisions for birth depends on their relation to women’s existing belief-systems and where the information lies in terms of distance from their original perceptions. This constitutes a form of reversed informed consent, women having decided on choices for birth long before being confronted with any evidence, also dependant on who is entrusted with involvement in their birth experience.
Although women continue to place value in their care providers, women consider that their value is equal to their own capability to resource themselves. It is vital that midwives communicate with women about information they are seeking and are able to move forwards in a partnership approach to care.
Social and cultural precursors and consequences of optimal childbirth
