What is it about?
Nine out of ten Swedes who are expecting their first child attend to free classes offered by maternity clinics. In these classes, midwives attempt to prepare expectant parents for childbirth and parenting. This study investigates how midwives go about in trying to prepare the parents for childbirth. I show that the midwives particularly try to mitigate fear and distress among the parents, given that many things cannot be controlled during childbirth. In their talk about childbirth, the midwives emphasize talk about things that the mother and the medical professionals can do to affect the outcome of the event. The study builds on video recordings of two prenatal education classes, as well as on interviews with the midwives who led them.
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Why is it important?
The study gives greater insight into one of the most widely used resources where new parents in Sweden obtain health knowledge connected to their role as parents. It also highlights how professional care workers can go about to help prepare care takers for intimidating events in their future.
Perspectives
This article was one of the three studies included in my compilation thesis about the conditions for the communication of health knowledge among new parents in Sweden. The other two studies take the perspective of new parents in different ways, and there at least partly point to problematic aspects of officialized health communication. I am happy to have been able to look at this issue from the perspective of professionals who work with this form of communication as well. The thesis is called The Knowledgeable Parent: Ideologies of Communication in Swedish Health Discourse, and can be downloaded here: https://www.academia.edu/31730776/The_Knowledgeable_Parent
Linnea Hanell
Stockholm University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Anticipatory discourse in prenatal education, Discourse & Communication, November 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1750481317735708.
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