Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery and Research Governance Teams
    • Research Excellence Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2028
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

May 1, 2019

NorNAM (Nordic Network of Academic Midwives)

BU research, conferences, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, PG research, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Training, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Today BU’s professor Edwin van Teijlingen and FHSS (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) and Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland presented their work at NorNAM (Nordic Network of Academic Midwives).  The newly created network met in Reykjavik, Iceland for a three-day course on theories and models for midwifery.  Prof. van Teijlingen spoke about the medical/social model of pregnancy & childbirth and Jillian, who is also Professional Midwifery Advocate at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, presented the A-EQUIP model which is widely used in the UK.

Social scientists can bring different perspectives and theoretical understandings to research into midwifery and maternity care.  Today’s focus was on the social and medical model [1-5].   The medical model is ‘easy’ to understand, widely used in the media, based on medical science and claims to rely largely on objective measurement of symptoms and clinical observation.  It offers individual treatment solutions for individual patients.  The social model argues that there is inter-dependency between the ill person and their immediate and wider environment. The social model focuses on everyday life and the social, socio-economic, cultural and environmental aspects of health. It considers a wider range of factors that affect health, such as lifestyle, gender, poverty (or health inequality more generally), discrimination, and where and how we live.   The social model is generally not individualist, but complex and multi-dimensional and often does not offer easy solutions.  Solutions to health problem can be found at a population level and hence can be political or social as well as, for example, changes in the individual’s lifestyle.

The social model maintains that pregnancy and childbirth are largely physiological events that occur in most women’s lives.  Following this line of thinking, the social model argues that pregnancy and childbirth do not normally need medical intervention or the transfer to hospital.  A social model of care accepts childbirth as a normal social event in which preventative measures can be used.  The medical model portrays a different view, namely that childbirth is potentially pathological, and therefore every woman is potentially at risk when she is pregnant and/or in labour. In short the medical model wants us to believe that pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect.

The medical model is often portrayed in the media as the most appropriate and hence ‘safe’ approach to pregnancy and childbirth and not only ‘controls’ women, but also their families, friends and health care providers.  Understanding key sociological models of pregnancy and childbirth can help politicians, journalists, policy-makers, midwives, doctors, and other health care providers, childbirth activists as well as pregnant women and new mothers (and their partners) to put issues around ‘normal birth’ into perspective.

 

References:

  1. Brailey, S., Luyben, A., Firth, L., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Women, midwives and a medical model of maternity care in Switzerland, Int J Childbirth 7(3): 117-125.
  2. van Teijlingen, E. (2017) The medical and social model of childbirth, Kontakt 19 (2): e73-e74
  3. MacKenzie Bryers H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.
  4. Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, Practising Midwife 16 (11): 17-20.
  5. van Teijlingen E. (2005) A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth, Sociol Res Online, 10 (2) Web address: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html

 

Tags: BU research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research Health Iceland Midwife midwifery Nordic Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publishing social sciences

Related Posts

  • New paper international midwiferyJanuary 10, 2018
  • Sociology presentation at Dutch Annual Midwifery Conference (22 Jan. 2016)January 24, 2016
  • Social/Medical Model and the concept of ‘Normal’ BirthNovember 30, 2013
  • BU professor invited to give key note at 2016 Dutch Midwifery ConferenceOctober 13, 2015

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • Forecasting UK Carbon Emissions: The Next 5 to 10 YearsSeptember 22, 2023
  • 'Thank you' written in gold with gold confetti around Postdoc Appreciation Week: Anastasia VayonaSeptember 22, 2023
  • Conversation article: Bidenomics – why it’s more likely to win the 2024 election than many people thinkSeptember 22, 2023
  • We need policy and evidence to help change TV work cultureSeptember 21, 2023
  • 'Thank you' written in gold with gold confetti around Postdoc Appreciation Week: Dr Aralisa SheddenSeptember 21, 2023
  • Parliamentary Committees online event, October 3rdSeptember 20, 2023
  • Wellcome trust ECR awardSeptember 10, 2023
  • Time for Something New?September 7, 2023
  • British Academy Small Grants WorkshopSeptember 1, 2023
  • Development fund from the British Academy ECRNAugust 2, 2023
  • BA Seed funding call NOW OPENAugust 2, 2023
  • The call for the next round of BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants will be opening soon.July 28, 2023
  • BU policy update for the w/e 22nd September 2023September 21, 2023
  • HE policy update – summer catch up September 2023September 18, 2023
  • Association to Horizon Europe – Agreement in Principle ReachedSeptember 7, 2023
  • Webinar – ERC grants 2024September 5, 2023
  • BU FoodMAPP reseachers host partner secondment from Institut Lyfe, LyonAugust 14, 2023
  • Two papers based on ERASMUS+ exchangeAugust 8, 2023

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Dr. Pramod Regmi Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU event Events funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework RKEDF social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HE-BCI
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • mrc
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Ethics Panels
  • research governance
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • research methods
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2023. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use