"No Man's Land" : an exploration of the traumatic experiences of student midwives in practice

Davies, SE ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5503-2355 and Coldridge, E 2015, '"No Man's Land" : an exploration of the traumatic experiences of student midwives in practice' , Midwifery, 31 (9) , pp. 858-864.

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Abstract

Background: The role of being ‘with woman’ during traumatic birth has been identified as having an emotional cost for midwives, but to date no research has explored traumatic experiences of student midwives. Aim: To explore student midwives׳ perceptions of what was traumatic for them and how they were supported with such events. Design: A qualitative descriptive approach, using semi structured interviews. Setting: One university in the North West of England. Participants: 11 student midwives recruited by poster campaign. Findings: Five main themes emerged from the analysis. 'Wearing your Blues' depicted what participants described as the ‘bleak’ landscape of practice. 'No Man’s Land' was concerned with traumatic tensions in the student role. ‘Get the Red Box! ’ and 'The Aftermath' concerned traumatic events in practice and the impact of these on students. 'Learning to cope' related to the way students coped with such incidents, as well as other stresses in the role. Key conclusions: The student midwife inhabits a vulnerable position in the ‘No Man’s Land’ of hospital practice. Her strong identification with the woman renders her potentially more vulnerable in traumatic situations. The study revealed a paradigmatic clash between the manualised care of a busy obstetric unit and the individualised woman-led approach they were expecting.

Item Type:	Article
Themes:	Health and Wellbeing
Schools:	Schools > School of Health and Society > Centre for Applied Research in Health, Welfare and Policy
Journal or Publication Title:	Midwifery
Publisher:	Elsevier
Refereed:	Yes
ISSN:	0266-6138
Related URLs:	Publication
Funders:	University of Salford
Depositing User:	SE Davies
Date Deposited:	16 Jun 2015 13:46
Last Modified:	05 Nov 2019 14:54
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/34994

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