Childbirth, Midwifery and Concepts of Time

Christine McCourt studied for her degree and doctorate in social anthropology at the London School of Economics. Her doctoral work, an ethnographic study of the closure of a long-stay psychiatric hospital, was explicitly intended to be ‘applied anthropology’. From 2006 to 2010 she was Professor of Anthropology and Health, at Thames Valley University and she is now Professor of Maternal and Child Health at City University London. Her research and teaching is mainly focused on culture and organisation of biomedicine, maternal and infant care, and social and cultural issues affecting women’s health.

List of Figures



Foreword

Ronnie Frankenberg



Acknowledgements



Introduction



PART I: HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT



Chapter 1. From Tradition to Modernity: Time and Childbirth in Historical Perspective

Christine McCourt and Fiona Dykes



Chapter 2. Cosmologies, Concepts and Theories: Time and Childbirth in Cross-cultural Perspective

Christine McCourt



PART II: TIME AND CHILDBIRTH PRACTICES



Chapter 3. Counting Time in Pregnancy and Labour

Soo Downe and Fiona Dykes



Chapter 4. The Progress of Labour: Orderly Chaos?

Clare Winter and Margie Duff



Chapter 5. Time and Midwifery Practice

Trudy Stevens



Chapter 6. "Waiting on Birth": Management of Time and Place in a Birth Centre

Denis Walsh



Chapter 7. Management of Time in Aboriginal and Northern Midwifery Settings

Gisela Becker



PART III: TIME AND CHILDBIRTH EXPERIENCES



Chapter 8. Narrative Time: Stories, Childbirth and Midwifery

Ólöf Ólafsdóttir and Mavis Kirkham



Chapter 9. How Long Have I Got? Time in Labour: Themes from Women's Birth Stories

Christine McCourt



Chapter 10. "Feeding All the Time": Women's Temporal Dilemmas around Breastfeeding in Hospital

Fiona Dykes



Chapter 11. Living with "Uncertainty": Women's Experience of Breastfeeding in the Current Japanese Social Context

Naoko Hashimoto



Conclusion



Notes on Contributors

Index