Importance Of Childbirth

Given an increasing acceptance and normalisation of interventions in the labour and birthing process within society, it is necessary for midwives to recognise, understand the importance of, and protect and promote physiological pregnancy and childbirth. This has been recognised by the New Zealand Midwifery Council as within a midwife’s scope of practice. Physiological childbirth will be explored, looking at how the term differs from ‘normal’ childbirth in midwifery practice. An analyse of the vast definitions of normal birth will reveal that conceptualising the meaning of normality is problematic due to its subjective nature. Next, a reflection on how midwives aspire to keep birth physiological will be examined, focusing specifically on how

The phrase elicits a variety of different meanings between and within midwives, obstetricians, and women (Peate & Hamilton, 2008). Its understanding is influenced by many factors including those in the social, medical and cultural realm (Bond, 2010). Downe (1998) theorised that normality is a flexible concept whereby it’s social construction changes over time. Hence what people define as normal is dependent on what is currently socially and culturally acceptable (Downe, 1998). Kitzinger (2002) supports this view and goes further suggesting that women reside in a society that medicalises childbirth. Due to a growing prevalence and acceptance of medical interventions, ‘normal’ childbirth has in this day and age, expanded to incorporate an array of interventions, resulting in a discrepancy between normal and physiological

The downside of the term normal is that it has other connotations of being standard, usual or most common (Downe, 2008). Moreover, normal may also suggest that any other births are abnormal, and can lead to feelings of guilt for some midwives and women (Downe, 2008). Unsurprisingly, the desire to seek definitions for normal birth arose from the medical model of childbirth. Medical definitions remove a woman’s unique experience of childbirth in favour of proposing rigourous parameters and expectations that anticipate many to fail (Downe, 2008). This in turn pathologises women’s individuality as abnormal, and attempt to amend such deviances with medical intervention (Downe,