A medical sociologist with an interest in mixed-methods research, Edwin van Teijlingenhas published widely in the field of midwifery and maternity care. He has also published on various aspects of research methods in a format easily accessible to a lay audience, including a paper on research ethics published in a midwifery journal.
He has conducted cross-cultural research into the organisation of maternity care, whilst his most recent overseas’ research is largely based in South Asia.He is professor at Bournemouth University, England and Visiting Professor at two universities in Nepal.
His edited books include: Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge, 2001 and Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science, 2004
Pregnancy and birth are physiological events embedded in a social and cultural setting and therefore a good example of the application of a medical or social model.
On the one hand, the average woman in childbirth is not ill because pregnancy is not an illness. On the other hand, pregnant women are deemed to need a lot of health care throughout pregnancy and childbirth. Those who support the idea of a medical model often claim that: ‘Birth is only safe in retrospect’. Whilst those more in line with the social model would make the counterclaim that “every pregnancy is normal unless there are indications that something is wrong” or “childbirth is in principle a normal physiological event”.
The importance of understanding which model someone is adhering helps us to understand where they are coming from, what their likely view of the problem and hence to likely solutions are.
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