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Women-centred midwifery: partnerships or professional friendships?

Abstract:

In 1995 Karen Guilliland and I published a monograph, The Midwifery partnership: a model for practice (Guilliland & Pairman, 1995). This monograph explored the development of the concept of midwifery as a partnership in New Zealand and presented a theoretical model to describe this partnership. The model arose from reflection on our personal experiences and practice as midwives, and our observations of, and discussions with, many other midwives and women. In 1996 I commenced a research study for a masters thesis and decided to further explore the nature of the relationship between midwives and women, this time using the experiences and perceptions of a small group of midwives and women. In this paper I will briefly discuss the methodology and methods used for the study and summarise the findings. I will then focus in greater depth the notions of partnership, friendship and professional friendship.

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midwife woman relationship, partnership, professional friendship