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Between Experts and Laypersons: Midwives Offering Knowledge to Parents-To-Be

Sat, September 7, 2:45 to 4:15pm, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Floor: Five, Grand Ballroom E

Abstract

In Sweden, midwives oversee pregnancy check-ups, organize parental classes, and support women through childbirth. Professional and organizational guidelines to a large extent affect what kind of knowledge is considered valid and appropriate but also peoples’ feelings and requests. Midwives are the experts who mediate, package and translate medical knowledge to laypersons, the parents-to-be, who bring their own understandings and feelings to the encounter. By looking at a seemingly voluntary activity such as parental classes, this paper sheds light on new and other aspects of what interrupts and/or facilitates the movement of knowledge between experts and laypersons.
This paper is based on an ongoing research project that studies how midwives as mediators of knowledge make evidence-based knowledge and guidelines accessible and palatable to parents-to-be. Through qualitative interviews with midwives, the project explores how midwives reason about how to talk about knowledge with the parents-to-be about such a personal and intimate practice as childcare.

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