Routledge Research in Nursing and Midwifery – serie

This book investigates why women choose ‘birth outside the system’ and makes connections between women’s right to choose where they birth and violations of human rights within maternity care systems.Choosing to birth at home can force women out of mainstream maternity care, despite research supporting the safety of this option for low-risk women attended by midwives. When homebirth is not supported as a birthplace option, women will defy mainstream medical advice, and if a midwife is not available, choose either an unregulated careprovider or birth without assistance. This book examines the circumstances and drivers behind why women nevertheless choose homebirth by bringing legal and ethical perspectives together with the latest research on high-risk homebirth (breech and twin births), freebirth, birth with unregulated careproviders and the oppression of midwives who support unorthodox choices. Stories from women who have pursued alternatives in Australia, Europe, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Middle East and India are woven through the research. Insight and practical strategies are shared by doctors, midwives, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists on how to manage the tension between professional obligations and women’s right to bodily autonomy. This book, the first of its kind, is an important contribution to considerations of place of birth and human rights in childbirth.

This book provides healthcare professionals with a practice theory for the care and management of patients who have been diagnosed with cancer. It explores what patients experience and how healthcare professionals can assist them in dealing with their uncertainty and fear as well as planning for the future. Unique to the book is its explication of the emerging theory, ‘The Omnipresence of Cancer’, which is set in the context of a discussion of earlier theories also concerned with cancer care. Chapters demonstrate how ‘The Omnipresence of Cancer’ has been developed, validated through research and being further tested in relation to cancer care. In particular, a chapter on philosophical reflections using theory to produce knowledge for practice is included. Each chapter provides essential background, a synthesis of the current state of knowledge, and practice examples associated with cancer care. The combination of theoretical reflection and practice examples is designed to promote comprehension and guidance on implementation of the theory, as well as recommendations for practice. This book will be of significant interest to healthcare students and professionals working in the field of cancer care and oncology, particularly healthcare professionals working in advanced practice roles and nurse educators. It is also anticipated that professionals working in pastoral care, occupational therapy, social work and radiography will be interested in this book.

The humanities have long been recognized as having a place in nursing knowledge, and have been used in education, theory, and research by nurses. However, the place of humanities in nursing has always remained ambiguous. This book offers an in-depth exploration of the relationship between humanities and nursing. The book starts with a survey of the history of humanities in nursing, in comparison with medical humanities and in the context of the emergence of interdisciplinary health humanities. There is a description of applications of humanities within nursing. A central section offers an argument for placing the humanities firmly within a mixed model of nursing knowledge that is based upon embodied cognition. Final chapters explore these ideas through a series of essays on topics of humanities as a form of intervention, prose and poetry in relation to nursing, and applications of the Buddhist concept of interdependence. Nursing and Humanities is intended primarily for nurse academics and graduate students, who have an interest in nursing theory, applications of arts and humanities in education, and qualitative research approaches. It will also interest practicing nurses who are looking for an account of nursing that combines the technical and the human.

This book investigates the education and assessment of student midwives in clinical practice, paying particular attention to how their practice is graded. Chenery-Morris brings primary research, which explores students, mentors, and midwifery lecturers perspectives of practice learning and its assessment, together with the international literature on clinical knowledge, teaching and learning in practice and assessment of students drawn from a range of healthcare and education professions. Discussing how practice is graded, what constitutes valid practice knowledge, learning in clinical practice, evaluating practice learning and failing students, this book uses Basil Bernstein’s theories to throw light on how we assess and whether we should assess performance in addition to whether a student is competent to practise. This is an important contribution to the field of midwifery education. It will also be relevant to those with an interest in practice education from a range of healthcare professions.

This book explores how, why and when hermeneutic phenomenology can be used as a methodology in health and social research. Providing actual examples of doing robust hermeneutic phenomenology and a focus on praxis, the book demonstrates how philosophical or theoretical notions can inform, enrich and enhance our research projects. The chapters offer examples of many different research designs and interpretive decisions in order to illustrate the unbounded and creative nature of this type of inquiry, whilst also demonstrating the trustworthiness of the scientific processes adopted. The chapter authors invite the reader on a unique journey that highlights how they made individual and tailored decisions throughout their projects, emphasising the challenges and joys they encountered. This book is a valuable resource for all students and academics who wish to explore the meaningfulness of human lived experiences across the multitude of phenomena in health and social care.

This work explores the interplay of complexity and values in nurse education from a variety of vantages. Contributors, who come from a range of international and disciplinary backgrounds, critically engage important and problematic topics that are under-investigated elsewhere. Taking an innovative approach each chapter is followed by one or more responses and, on occasion, a reply to responses. This novel dialogic feature of the work tests, animates, and enriches the arguments being presented. Thought-provoking, challenging and occasionally rumbustious in tone, this volume has something to say to both nurse educators (who may find cherished practices questioned) and students. Given the breadth and nature of subjects covered, the book will also appeal to anyone concerned about and interested in nursing’s professional development/trajectory.

This book investigates the education and assessment of student midwives in clinical practice, paying particular attention to how their practice is graded. Chenery-Morris brings primary research, which explores students, mentors, and midwifery lecturers perspectives of practice learning and its assessment, together with the international literature on clinical knowledge, teaching and learning in practice and assessment of students drawn from a range of healthcare and education professions. Discussing how practice is graded, what constitutes valid practice knowledge, learning in clinical practice, evaluating practice learning and failing students, this book uses Basil Bernstein’s theories to throw light on how we assess and whether we should assess performance in addition to whether a student is competent to practise. This is an important contribution to the field of midwifery education. It will also be relevant to those with an interest in practice education from a range of healthcare professions.

Focussing on end-of-life care for people who use, or have used, substances, this book explores their social and health care needs and the multiple disadvantages they have often experienced, discussing the complexities around access to care that result. Presenting models of good practice, case studies and empirically based evidence, Substance Use, End-of-Life Care is informative, rigorous and useful for policy and practice development. The first section foregrounds the personal experiences of people living with substance use, their families and friends, and the health and social care professionals who work with them. The second section looks at how health inequalities can impact people in need of palliative care, including chapters on health literacy, mental health and learning disabilities. The final section explores social challenges that may be experienced, including homelessness, sex work, racism and incarceration. This interdisciplinary volume is essential for researchers, practitioners, students and educators working around substance use, mental health and palliative and end-of-life care, who are looking for guidance and a reference for their work in supporting people at the end of their lives who have multiple and often complex needs.

Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault critiques mainstream American nursing theory and its use of post-structural theory, comparing and contrasting how postmodern and post-structural ideas have been used fruitfully in nursing research and theorizing elsewhere.In the late 1980s, references to post-structuralism and Michel Foucault started to appear in nursing journals. Since then, hundreds of nursing publications have cited postmodernism and key post-structural ideas such as power/knowledge, discourse, and de-centring the human subject. In Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault, Olga Petrovskaya argues that the application of these ideas is markedly different in American nursing theory scholarship compared to nursing theoretical scholarship generated outside the canon of "unique" nursing theory. Analysing relevant literature from the late 1980s through 2010s, she demonstrates this difference, arguing that American nursing theory calcified into a matrix of dogmas built on logical positivism, wary of "borrowed" theory, and loyal to a "unique nursing science." Post-structural ideas that fit the matrix, such as criticism of medicine, are sanctioned, whereas ideas sceptical of humanistic agendas including those that challenge American nursing theory are rendered meaningless. In contrast, other nurse scholars from Britain, Australia, Canada, and what the author calls the American enclave group engaged with postmodern and post-structural perspectives to enrich their research and invite readers to rethink nursing practice. The book showcases examples of their intelligent, creative theorizing. Arguing that American nursing theory enervated nursing theorizing, Petrovskaya calls for opening this matrix to theoretical and methodological creativity, less rigid categories of scholarship, and healthy self-examination.Making the case that post-structural ideas are vital for nurses’ ability to critically reflect on their discipline and profession, this is a necessary read for all those interested in nursing theory, philosophy, and praxis.Chapter 1 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

To be at the birth of a baby is special, yet there is an increasing secularisation and reliance on technology in contemporary maternity care, particularly in the western context. Through exploration of experiences at birth this book explores joy at birth, which is often ignored and overlooked beyond the activities that help to ensure survival. This book draws on a collection of stories of birth from mothers, birth partners, obstetricians and midwives, that demonstrate joy at birth across professional groups and in different types of births and locations with or without technological interventions. Each chapter introduces stories of joy that highlight embodied, spatial and relational meanings. Employing the Heideggerian notion of a human being, it sketches out an ontological focus that draws our gaze to the everyday taken-for-granted ways of being at birth. Based on phenomenological experiential data and rigorous interpretive analysis underpinned by seminal philosophical writings, this book calls for readers to attend to the wholeness of birth in all situations and at all births in ways not attempted before. It will be of great interest to midwives, and those working in and studying maternity, obstetrics and neonatology, as well as social and medical anthropology, sociology, cultural, organisational and clinical psychology and spirituality.

Examining the historical context of healthcare whilst focusing on building a more just, equitable world, this book proposes a radical imagination for nursing and presents possibilities for speculative futures embracing queer, feminist, posthuman, and abolitionist frames.Bringing together radical and emancipatory perspectives from an international selection of authors, this book reflects on the realities created by the COVID-19 pandemic, recognizing that our situation is not new but the result of ongoing hegemonies and injustices. The authors attend to the history of nursing and related institutions, examining the assumptions, ideologies, and discourses that shape the discipline and its place within healthcare. They explore the impact of this context on contemporary nursing and look at alternative visions for the future. The final section specifically focuses on ways that we can move forward.Envisioning new possibilities for nursing, this innovative volume is a vital resource for practitioners, scholars and students keen to promote social justice within and without nursing. It is an important contribution to nursing theory, philosophy and history.

This book examines some of the more disturbing representations of nurses in popular culture, to understand nursing’s complex identities, challenges and future directions.It critically analyses disquieting representations of nurses who don’t care, who kill, who inspire fear or who do not comply with laws and policies. Also addressed are stories about how power is used, as well as supernatural experiences in nursing. Using a series of examples taken from popular culture ranging from film, television and novels to memoirs and true crime podcasts, it interrogates the meaning of the shadow side of nursing and the underlying paradoxes that influence professional identity. Iconic nursing figures are still powerful today. Decades after they were first created, Ratched and Annie Wilkes continue to make readers and viewers shudder at the prospect of ever being ill. Modern storytelling modes are bringing to audiences the grim reality that some nurses are members of the working poor, like Cath Hardacre in Trust Me, and others can be dangerous con artists, like the nurse in Dirty John.This book is important reading for all those interested in understanding the links between nursing’s image and the profession’s potential as an agent for change.

Motherhood, Spirituality and Culture explores spiritual skills that may assist women in changes, challenges and transformations undergone through the transition to motherhood. This study comprises rich, qualitative data gathered from interviews with 11 mothers. Results are analysed by constructing seven unique maternal narratives that elucidate and give voice to the mothers in their transition by in depth exploration of six themes emerging from the analysis. Overall discussion ranges across such realities as:• desires, expectations and illusions for mothering;• birth and spiritual embodied experiences of mothering;• instinctual knowing; identity and crisis, and connections of motherhood;• changes and transformations undergone through motherhood.This study presents a unique framework for qualitative studies of spirituality within motherhood research; by weaving together transpersonal psychology, humanistic psychology, spiritual intelligence and the spiritual maternal literature.This book will appeal to all women who have transitioned to motherhood. It willalso be of assistance to professionals who wish to approach any aspect of maternity care and support from a transpersonal perspective. It will also provideunique insights for academics and postgraduate students in the fields of anthropology, psychology, psychotherapy and feminism studies.

Research shows that racism affects the working lives of nurses and nurse academics, as well as healthcare service delivery and outcomes. This book looks at the impact of racism, from experiences of microaggression to discrimination and structural and institutionalised racism.Focusing on the work of six doctoral researchers and practitioners who have chosen to address and investigate the racism they experience, witness or observe in the UK’s National Health Service and Universities, this book includes personal reflections on their findings. The substantive chapters are framed by a discussion of policy and research on racism, thoughts on research supervision within this field and a drawing together of the key themes developed through this book.Giving voice to nurses’ and lecturers’ responses to racism in nursing education and practice, this is an important contribution for students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in health inequalities, healthcare organisations, research methods and workforce development.

This work explores the interplay of complexity and values in nurse education from a variety of vantages. Contributors, who come from a range of international and disciplinary backgrounds, critically engage important and problematic topics that are under-investigated elsewhere. Taking an innovative approach each chapter is followed by one or more responses and, on occasion, a reply to responses. This novel dialogic feature of the work tests, animates, and enriches the arguments being presented. Thought-provoking, challenging and occasionally rumbustious in tone, this volume has something to say to both nurse educators (who may find cherished practices questioned) and students. Given the breadth and nature of subjects covered, the book will also appeal to anyone concerned about and interested in nursing’s professional development/trajectory.

This book explores how, why and when hermeneutic phenomenology can be used as a methodology in health and social research. Providing actual examples of doing robust hermeneutic phenomenology and a focus on praxis, the book demonstrates how philosophical or theoretical notions can inform, enrich and enhance our research projects. The chapters offer examples of many different research designs and interpretive decisions in order to illustrate the unbounded and creative nature of this type of inquiry, whilst also demonstrating the trustworthiness of the scientific processes adopted. The chapter authors invite the reader on a unique journey that highlights how they made individual and tailored decisions throughout their projects, emphasising the challenges and joys they encountered. This book is a valuable resource for all students and academics who wish to explore the meaningfulness of human lived experiences across the multitude of phenomena in health and social care.

Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault critiques mainstream American nursing theory and its use of post-structural theory, comparing and contrasting how postmodern and post-structural ideas have been used fruitfully in nursing research and theorizing elsewhere.In the late 1980s, references to post-structuralism and Michel Foucault started to appear in nursing journals. Since then, hundreds of nursing publications have cited postmodernism and key post-structural ideas such as power/knowledge, discourse, and de-centring the human subject. In Nursing Theory, Postmodernism, Post-structuralism, and Foucault, Olga Petrovskaya argues that the application of these ideas is markedly different in American nursing theory scholarship compared to nursing theoretical scholarship generated outside the canon of "unique" nursing theory. Analysing relevant literature from the late 1980s through 2010s, she demonstrates this difference, arguing that American nursing theory calcified into a matrix of dogmas built on logical positivism, wary of "borrowed" theory, and loyal to a "unique nursing science." Post-structural ideas that fit the matrix, such as criticism of medicine, are sanctioned, whereas ideas sceptical of humanistic agendas including those that challenge American nursing theory are rendered meaningless. In contrast, other nurse scholars from Britain, Australia, Canada, and what the author calls the American enclave group engaged with postmodern and post-structural perspectives to enrich their research and invite readers to rethink nursing practice. The book showcases examples of their intelligent, creative theorizing. Arguing that American nursing theory enervated nursing theorizing, Petrovskaya calls for opening this matrix to theoretical and methodological creativity, less rigid categories of scholarship, and healthy self-examination.Making the case that post-structural ideas are vital for nurses’ ability to critically reflect on their discipline and profession, this is a necessary read for all those interested in nursing theory, philosophy, and praxis.Chapter 1 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Focussing on end-of-life care for people who use, or have used, substances, this book explores their social and health care needs and the multiple disadvantages they have often experienced, discussing the complexities around access to care that result. Presenting models of good practice, case studies and empirically based evidence, Substance Use, End-of-Life Care is informative, rigorous and useful for policy and practice development. The first section foregrounds the personal experiences of people living with substance use, their families and friends, and the health and social care professionals who work with them. The second section looks at how health inequalities can impact people in need of palliative care, including chapters on health literacy, mental health and learning disabilities. The final section explores social challenges that may be experienced, including homelessness, sex work, racism and incarceration. This interdisciplinary volume is essential for researchers, practitioners, students and educators working around substance use, mental health and palliative and end-of-life care, who are looking for guidance and a reference for their work in supporting people at the end of their lives who have multiple and often complex needs.

Examining the historical context of healthcare whilst focusing on building a more just, equitable world, this book proposes a radical imagination for nursing and presents possibilities for speculative futures embracing queer, feminist, posthuman, and abolitionist frames.Bringing together radical and emancipatory perspectives from an international selection of authors, this book reflects on the realities created by the COVID-19 pandemic, recognizing that our situation is not new but the result of ongoing hegemonies and injustices. The authors attend to the history of nursing and related institutions, examining the assumptions, ideologies, and discourses that shape the discipline and its place within healthcare. They explore the impact of this context on contemporary nursing and look at alternative visions for the future. The final section specifically focuses on ways that we can move forward.Envisioning new possibilities for nursing, this innovative volume is a vital resource for practitioners, scholars and students keen to promote social justice within and without nursing. It is an important contribution to nursing theory, philosophy and history.

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted by an American nurse, Caring in Context is an exploration of how most of the world experiences cancer, and how nurses bear witness and respond to the suffering of others when they have little means to help—or for complex reasons, choose not to.This compelling book centers on nurses in a government cancer hospital in South India and examines key contexts that influence nursing practice and the delivery of healthcare, including hierarchical legacies of colonialism and the caste system, resource scarcity, power and perceived powerlessness, and gender inequities. These themes are illustrated through intersecting narratives, such as the story of Hameeda, an orphaned teenager with sarcoma who lives at the hospital until she becomes paralyzed, and Sister Meena, a nurse who strives to provide better care but encounters overwhelming structural obstacles and is chastised by her superiors for doing too much.Offering a critical re-examination of the realities faced by clinicians, patients, and family members who struggle to deliver and receive cancer care, Caring in Context’s unique perspective and accessible style will appeal to a wide and interdisciplinary audience, from practitioners, academics, and advocates to anyone interested in the complex context of the human experience.

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted by an American nurse, Caring in Context is an exploration of how most of the world experiences cancer, and how nurses bear witness and respond to the suffering of others when they have little means to help—or for complex reasons, choose not to.This compelling book centers on nurses in a government cancer hospital in South India and examines key contexts that influence nursing practice and the delivery of healthcare, including hierarchical legacies of colonialism and the caste system, resource scarcity, power and perceived powerlessness, and gender inequities. These themes are illustrated through intersecting narratives, such as the story of Hameeda, an orphaned teenager with sarcoma who lives at the hospital until she becomes paralyzed, and Sister Meena, a nurse who strives to provide better care but encounters overwhelming structural obstacles and is chastised by her superiors for doing too much.Offering a critical re-examination of the realities faced by clinicians, patients, and family members who struggle to deliver and receive cancer care, Caring in Context’s unique perspective and accessible style will appeal to a wide and interdisciplinary audience, from practitioners, academics, and advocates to anyone interested in the complex context of the human experience.

The humanities have long been recognized as having a place in nursing knowledge, and have been used in education, theory, and research by nurses. However, the place of humanities in nursing has always remained ambiguous. This book offers an in-depth exploration of the relationship between humanities and nursing. The book starts with a survey of the history of humanities in nursing, in comparison with medical humanities and in the context of the emergence of interdisciplinary health humanities. There is a description of applications of humanities within nursing. A central section offers an argument for placing the humanities firmly within a mixed model of nursing knowledge that is based upon embodied cognition. Final chapters explore these ideas through a series of essays on topics of humanities as a form of intervention, prose and poetry in relation to nursing, and applications of the Buddhist concept of interdependence. Nursing and Humanities is intended primarily for nurse academics and graduate students, who have an interest in nursing theory, applications of arts and humanities in education, and qualitative research approaches. It will also interest practicing nurses who are looking for an account of nursing that combines the technical and the human.

Research shows that racism affects the working lives of nurses and nurse academics, as well as healthcare service delivery and outcomes. This book looks at the impact of racism, from experiences of microaggression to discrimination and structural and institutionalised racism.Focusing on the work of six doctoral researchers and practitioners who have chosen to address and investigate the racism they experience, witness or observe in the UK’s National Health Service and Universities, this book includes personal reflections on their findings. The substantive chapters are framed by a discussion of policy and research on racism, thoughts on research supervision within this field and a drawing together of the key themes developed through this book.Giving voice to nurses’ and lecturers’ responses to racism in nursing education and practice, this is an important contribution for students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in health inequalities, healthcare organisations, research methods and workforce development.

This book draws on original research to illuminate how the personal values and norms of healthcare professionals in the Emergency Department (ED) influence how they experience the death of a patient, and develop tools and strategies to cope with these experiences. Experiencing death in the ED begins by considering the nature of death in the ED; rather than planned and dignified, as part of a palliative or end‑of‑life care pathway, it is often abrupt and unexpected. Healthcare practitioners can be expected to ‘move on’ and function almost immediately after a death in this busy work environment, carrying the potential for emotional distress and psychological trauma.Penzes investigates the psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of death and how it influences the lives of those people who are directly involved, including the healthcare professionals looking after their patients. Presenting models of bereavement, he looks specifically at deaths in the ED, exploring what makes a death memorable, and how the patient can be objectified or humanised. A discussion of how the personal values and norms of practitioners help them to make sense of deaths they’ve experienced is followed up with an exploration of the emotional labour of death and its impact on healthcare professionals’ behaviours, decisions, and priorities, influencing their coping mechanisms, the care provided for other patients, and even their career choices.Arguing that developing emotional intelligence, self‑awareness, and effective self‑management of personal values is crucial in providing holistic care to patients and their families, this book is an important read for researchers and students from nursing, medicine, allied health, business studies, and sociology. It is of particular value for those with an interest in grief and bereavement, trauma, workforce development and wellbeing, and emergency care nursing.

This book examines how socio-cultural context affects the learning of nursing students. It builds on this to introduce a new approach for educators to effectively teach clinical skills by taking these contexts into account, whether they are in the skills laboratory, the ward or the classroom.Moving away from traditional ideas about teaching students by rote, this text draws on research findings, educational theories, and case studies to demonstrate how skills acquisition is influenced by the learner’s socio-cultural context. It utilises a social constructionist conceptual framework drawing upon the work of a series of scholars – including Benjamin Bloom, Patricia Benner, Albert Bandura and Lev Vygotsky – to examine elements essential for nursing skills development and to highlight four broad areas to focus on: environmental factors, human-related factors, cultural factors and skills learning specific factors. Dr Irene Y.F. Wong then introduces a new approach for conducting clinical nursing skills education that is sensitive to these factors and promotes more effective learning.This thoughtful book is an essential read for nursing and healthcare academics and professionals with an interest in clinical skills education.

This book considers the structure and demographics of the workforce in nursing and midwifery higher education, observing the gender divide, highlighting the impact of intersectionality, and exploring the challenges and opportunities this provides. Divers and Chenery-Morris look at the power of clinical practice, the perception of nursing and midwifery as ‘women’s work,’ perceptions of meaning around being female, social mobility, race, sexuality, the ‘caring role,’ academic identities and the role of men. To investigate these issues, they introduce intersectional case studies of the lived experiences of women working in higher education and make connections to the wider international literature, in particular sociological, feminist and gender theories.The chapters are linked to larger questions that encompass the purpose of universities more generally, including social mobility, generating new knowledge, challenging irrelevant practices or those rooted in colonisation, and reflexivity culminating in visions of the future for the professions. Showcasing a range of experiences and voices from nursing and midwifery academics, this is an important contribution to discussions of gender in higher education and in the caring professions.It will interest advanced students and researchers from nursing, midwifery, education, sociology, and gender studies.

This groundbreaking volume investigates why practicing nurses decide to remain in the profession. Combining insights from theoretical perspectives with empirical findings from over a decade of research, it sheds light on a vital topic for healthcare services and nurses globally. Skilled nurses play a critical role in providing quality care; however, countries worldwide face difficulties in the education, recruitment, and retention of nurses, leading to heavy workloads for those who remain, difficult starts for new graduates, and negative impacts on patient care and, in turn, public health.Focusing on the reasons why nurses stay in the profession – and including the voices of nurses illustrating this throughout – this book also reveals why nurses leave and how recruitment and retention of nursing staff can be improved. Kristoffersen argues that the decision to remain a nurse is linked to an individual’s self-understanding and identity and describes a process by which nurses perpetually deepen and widen their horizons of identity while, at the same time, having to balance what they strive to achieve and the challenges they have to face in everyday nursing care. It includes case studies looking at newly graduated nurses, home health care, mental health, nursing home, and school nurses.This is an important contribution for researchers and advanced students interested in nursing management, professional issues in nursing, nursing leadership, education, and the organization of health services.

Childbirth is a site of ongoing struggle over meaning, authority, regulation and control. This edited collection offers critical perspectives on current challenges in birth care by exploring how birth is shaped by competing epistemologies: medical, cultural, experiential and political.The book addresses analytically and theoretically some of the many negotiations, tensions, contestations and dilemmas with regard to care practices as well as birthing experiences. Moreover, the book reflects on how these challenges can be grasped as dilemmas moving beyond the often-declared dichotomy between medical and midwifery models of care or natural versus medical birth. The chapters are authored by researchers within the fields of social and human sciences, located geographical in different countries within different historical, organisational and political birth care settings.The book is oriented to not only scholars and students with interest into birth care but also practitioners and stakeholders politically and professionally engaged in the development of maternity care practices and settings.

To be at the birth of a baby is special, yet there is an increasing secularisation and reliance on technology in contemporary maternity care, particularly in the western context. Through exploration of experiences at birth this book explores joy at birth, which is often ignored and overlooked beyond the activities that help to ensure survival. This book draws on a collection of stories of birth from mothers, birth partners, obstetricians and midwives, that demonstrate joy at birth across professional groups and in different types of births and locations with or without technological interventions. Each chapter introduces stories of joy that highlight embodied, spatial and relational meanings. Employing the Heideggerian notion of a human being, it sketches out an ontological focus that draws our gaze to the everyday taken-for-granted ways of being at birth. Based on phenomenological experiential data and rigorous interpretive analysis underpinned by seminal philosophical writings, this book calls for readers to attend to the wholeness of birth in all situations and at all births in ways not attempted before. It will be of great interest to midwives, and those working in and studying maternity, obstetrics and neonatology, as well as social and medical anthropology, sociology, cultural, organisational and clinical psychology and spirituality.