Encourages and guides, or diagnoses and monitors: Woman centred-ness in the discourse of professional midwifery bodies

Exploring the uses of virtues in woman‐centred care: A quest, synthesis and reflection

“…Politeness facilitates the learning of how to be(come) a woman-centred midwife and in embedding doing woman-centred care. Education, reflection on and discussions about woman-centred care, having role models, adopting a woman-centred care code of conduct and making an effort in exploring woman-centred care strategies and care models-all serve as politeness in woman-centred care (Lake, 2014;O'Malley-Keighran & Lohan, 2016). Woman-centred care is an emancipatory movement, and the concept has been included in a range of policy documents at international and national levels since the 1990s, notably in the United Kingdom (Cumberlege, 2016;Grant, 2017) and in Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011).…”

“…For a successful journey, the (student) midwife needs a nurturing community of practice, a suitable context in education and organization of practice for the virtues to grow into habits, attitude and knowledge (Näsman & Nyholm, 2020). In other words, the woman-centred care journey should not be an individual and lonely journey but needs a support base and a footprint that include practitioners, educators, academics and policymakers who formally and overtly promote and take ownership of all womancentred care virtues and virtue acts (Fontein-Kuipers, de Groot, et al, 2019;O'Malley-Keighran & Lohan, 2016). Thus, when you love woman-centred care, act it and be a guide and role model or standard (Lake, 2014).…”

In search of balance

“…A recently published study, examined the language used by midwifery professional bodies, and identified three types of scope of practice; 1) a formal type focusing on midwifery practice, 2) a less formal type that focused on the midwife as agent, and 3) a type which featured the woman as agent. 296 Reflecting on our choice, we realize that we too used a midwife centred approach instead of one that was client centred. As a result, our message to midwives was: 1) we built an intervention to save your time, 2) we want you to spend a small amount of time to discuss GWG and lifestyle with pregnant women, and 3) we understand and agree that you will do this in the second half of pregnancy.…”

“…210, 307 Midwives are an important target group for the establishment of a healthy environment for the pregnant woman. 296 However, midwives' awareness of their role in health promotion and the experiences they have had in promoting health is an important determinant for their behaviour in promoting healthy GWG (chapter 3). Despite the fact that positive effects of "Come on!"…”

“…Each of these groups are part of the context in which pregnant women and midwives live and work. The best way to promote health is to invest in caregivers and public health interventions, 296 which our intervention did. However, in retrospect, we see that it is necessary to enlist a broader range of target groups.…”