Kingston and St. George's Joint Faculty, Health, Social Care and Education, St. George's Campus, Cranmer Terrace, Tooting, London, SW170RE, UK.
Research in Childbirth and Health (ReaCH) Group, University of Central Lancashire, PR12HE, Preston, Lancashire, UK.
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2017 Sep 4;17(1):283. doi: 10.1186/s12884-017-1476-4.
The birth story has been widely understood as a crucial source of knowledge about childbirth. What has not been reported is the effect that birth stories may have on primigravid women's understandings of birth. Findings are presented from a qualitative study exploring how two generations of women came to understand birth in the milieu of other's stories. The prior assumption was that birth stories must surely have a positive or negative influence on listeners, steering them towards either medical or midwifery-led models of care.
A Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used. Twenty UK participants were purposively selected and interviewed. Findings from the initial sample of 10 women who were pregnant in 2012 indicated that virtual media was a primary source of birth stories. This led to recruitment of a second sample of 10 women who gave birth in the 1970s-1980s, to determine whether they were more able to translate information into knowledge via stories told through personal contact and not through virtual technologies.
Findings revealed the experience of 'being-in-the-world' of birth and of stories in that world. From a Heideggerian perspective, the birth story was constructed through 'idle talk' (the taken for granted assumptions of things, which come into being through language). Both oral stories and those told through technology were described as the 'modern birth story'. The first theme 'Stories are difficult like that', examines the birth story as problematic and considers how stories shape meaning. The second 'It's a generational thing', considers how women from two generations came to understand what their experience might be. The third 'Birth in the twilight of certainty,' examines women's experience of Being in a system of birth as constructed, portrayed and sustained in the stories being shared.
The women pregnant in 2012 framed their expectations in the language of choice, whilst the women who birthed in the 1970s-1980s framed their experience in the language of safety. For both, however, the world of birth was the same; saturated with, and only legitimised by the birth of a healthy baby. Rather than creating meaningful understanding, the 'idle talk' of birth made both cohorts fearful of leaving the relative comfort of the 'system', and of claiming an alternative birth.
分娩故事被广泛认为是了解分娩的重要信息来源。但尚未报道的是，分娩故事可能对初产妇对分娩的理解产生影响。本研究从定性研究中呈现了一些发现，该研究探索了两代女性如何在他人故事的背景下理解分娩。之前的假设是，分娩故事肯定会对听众产生积极或消极的影响，引导他们选择医疗或助产模式的护理。
采用海德格尔解释学现象学方法。有目的地选择了 20 名英国参与者进行访谈。对 2012 年怀孕的 10 名女性的初始样本的发现表明，虚拟媒体是分娩故事的主要来源。这导致招募了第二个样本，其中包括 10 名 20 世纪 70 年代至 80 年代分娩的女性，以确定她们是否能够通过通过个人接触而不是通过虚拟技术讲述的故事将信息转化为知识。
研究结果揭示了分娩经历和故事在这个世界中的“存在方式”。从海德格尔的角度来看，分娩故事是通过“闲谈”（对事物的想当然的假设，通过语言而产生）构建的。口头故事和通过技术讲述的故事都被描述为“现代分娩故事”。第一个主题“故事就是这样困难”，探讨了作为问题的分娩故事，并考虑了故事如何塑造意义。第二个主题“这是代际的问题”，考虑了两代女性如何理解自己的经历。第三个主题“在确定性的黄昏中分娩”，考察了女性在共享的故事中所构建、描绘和维持的系统中体验分娩的方式。
2012 年怀孕的女性用选择的语言来表达自己的期望，而 20 世纪 70 年代至 80 年代分娩的女性则用安全的语言来描述自己的经历。然而，对两者来说，分娩的世界都是一样的；充满了，并且只有健康婴儿的诞生才能使其合法化。分娩的“闲谈”并没有创造有意义的理解，反而使两个群体都对离开相对舒适的“系统”感到恐惧，并对选择替代分娩感到恐惧。
