A critical analysis of the medical model as used in the study of pregnancy and childbirth

Sociological Research Online

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 2005, Pages

  Van Teijlingen, Edwin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Birth; Childbirth; Medical Model; Medical Sociology; Medicalisation; Midwifery; Pregnancy; Risk; Social Model

Indexed keywords

EID: 27444435881     PISSN: 13607804     EISSN: 13607804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5153/sro.1034     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (96)

1. ANNANDALE, E.C. (1988) 'How midwives accomplish natural birth: Managing risk and balancing expectations', Social Problems, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 95-110.
2. ARMSTRONG, P. and FELDMAN, S. (1987) The Gentle Art: A Midwife's Story. London: Corgi Books.
3. ARNEY, W.R. (1982) Power and the Profession of Obstetrics. Chicago: University of Chicago.
4. ASKHAM, J. and BARBOUR, R.S. (1999) The role and responsibilities of the midwife in Scotland' in: E. van Teijlingen, G. Lowis, P. McCaffery, and M. Porter (editors) Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science.
5. BALL, J.A. (1987) Reactions to motherhood: The role of post-natal care. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. BARROWS, D.C. (1998) The community orientation of social model and medical model recovery programs', Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 55-64.
7. BECKER, G. and NACHTIGALL, R.D. (1992) 'Eager for medicalisation: the social production of infertility as a disease', Sociology of Health and Illness, Vol. 14b, No. 4, pp. 456-471.
8. BEECH, B. L. (1987) Who's having your Baby?: A Health Rights' Handbook for Maternity Care. London: Camden Press.
9. BENGEL, J., STRITTMATTER, R. and WILLMANN, H. (1999) What Keeps People Healthy? The Current State of Discussion and the Relevance of Antonovsky's Salutogenic Model of Health', Research and Practice of Health Promotion Vol. 4, Cologne: Federal Centre for Health Education, http://www.bzga.de/zga_stat/ fachpubl/pdf-datei/ efh04.pdf
10. BENOIT, C. (1989) The professional socialisation of midwives: Balancing art and science', Sociology of Health and Illness, Vol. 11, No.2, pp. 160-80.
11. BERGER, P.L. and LUCKMAN, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
12. BERGSTROM, L. (1997) 'Midwifery as a discipline', Journal of Nurse-Midwifery, Vol. 42, No. 5, pp. 417-20.
13. BRANCA, P. (editor) (1977) The Medicine Show: Patient Physician and the Perplexities of the Health Revolution in Modern Society. New York: Science History.
14. BRYAR, R.M. (1995) Theory for Midwifery Practice. London: Macmillan.
15. CART WRIGHT, E. and THOMAS, J. (2001) 'Constructing Risk: Maternity care, law, malpractice', in R. DeVries, C. Benoit, E.R. van Teijlingen and S. Wrede (editors) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, maternity care , and midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge.
16. th century American medical textbook', Sociology of Health and Illness, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 151-77.
17. CHILD, N. (2000) The limits of the medical model in Child Psychiatry', Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 5,No.l, pp.11-21.
18. COMAROFF, J. (1977) 'Conflicting paradigms of pregnancy: Managing ambiguity in antenatal encounters', in A. Davis and G. Horobin (editors) Medical encounters: The experience of illness and treatment. London: Croom Helm.
19. CONRAD, O. and SCHNEIDER, J.W. (1980) 'Looking at levels of medicalization: A comment on Strong's critigue of the thesis of medical imperialism', Social Science and Medicine Vol. 14A, pp. 75-79.
20. COOK, W.A. (1982) Natural Childbirth: Fact and Fallacy. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
21. CORBETTA, P. (2003) Social Research: Theory, Methods and Techniques. London: Sage.
22. ndinf Edn) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
23. CRONENWETT, L. and BRICKMAN, P. (1983) 'Models of helping and coping in childbirth', Nursing Research vol. 32, no.2, pp.84-88.
24. DAMSTRA-WIJMENGA, S.M.I. (1984) 'Home confinements: the positive results in Holland', Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Vol. 34, pp. 425-430.
25. DAVIS-FLOYD, R. (1987) The technological model of birth, Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 100, No. 398, pp. 479-495.
26. DAVIS-FLOYD, R. and SARGENT, C.F. (editors) (1997) Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
27. DEVRIES, R.G. (1993) 'A cross-national view of the status of midwives'. In: E. Riska and K. Wegar (editors) Gender, work and Medicine: Women and the medical division of labour. London: Sage.
28. DEVRIES, R. and BARROSO, R. (1997) 'Midwives among the machines: Re-creating midwifery in the late twentieth century', in: H. Marland and A.M. Rafferty (editors) Midwives, Society and Childbirth: Debates and controversies in the modern period. London: Routledge.
29. EDWARDS N.P. (2000) 'Women planning homebirths: Their view own views on their relationships with midwives', in: M. Kirkham (editor) The midwife-mother relationship. Houndsmill: Macmillan Press Ltd.
30. EVANS, F. (1985) 'Managers and labourers: women's attitudes to reproductive technology', in: W. Faulkner and E. Arnold (editors) Smothered by invention: technology in women's lives. London: Pluto Press.
31. EYER, D. (1993) Mother-Infant Bonding: a scientific fiction. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
32. FLEMING, V.E.M. (1998) Women-with-midwives-with-women: a model of interdependence. Midwifery, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 137-143.
33. FOLEY, L and FAIRCLOTH, C.A. (2003) 'Medicine as discursive resource: legitimation in the work narratives of midwives', Sociology of Health and Illness, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 165-184.
34. FREIDSON, E. (1970) Profession of Medicine, a Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. New York: Harper and Row.
35. GERARD, J.B. (1999) The medical model of mental illness: Its application to the insanity defence', International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol. 22, No.1, pp.65-78.
36. GILLESPIE, R. and GERHARDT, C. (1995) 'Social dimensions of sickness and disability' in G. Moon and R. Gillespie (editors) Society & Health: An introduction to social science for health professionals. London: Routledge.
37. GRAHAM, H. and OAKLEY, A. (1986) 'Ideologies of reproduction', in: C. Currer and M. Stacey (editors.) Concepts of health and illness and disease: A comparative perspective. Leamington Spa: Berg.
38. HELMAN, C.G. (1985) 'Communication in primary care: the role of patient and practitioner explanatory models', Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 20, No. 9, pp. 923-931.
39. HERN, W.M. (1975) The illness parameters of pregnancy', Social Science and Medicine, vol. 9, pp.365-372.
40. HOWELL-WHITE, S. (1997) 'Choosing a birth attendant: The influence of a woman's childbirth definition', Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 45, No. 6, pp. 925-936.
41. KELLY, M.P., DAVIES, J.K. and CHARLTON, B.G. (1997) 'Healthy cities: a modern problem or a post-modern solution', in M. Sidell, L. Jones, J. Katz and A. Peberdy (editors) Debates and Dilemmas in Promoting Health: A Reader. Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd.
42. KENNEDY, H.P. and LOWE, N.K. (2001) 'Science and midwifery: Paradigms and paradoxes', Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health, vol. 46, no. 2, pp.91-97.
43. KILLUS, J. (1984) Geburtsmethoden: Eine Orientierungshilfe (In German: Birth Methods: An introduction). Berlin: Rotation Verlag.
44. KITZINGER, S. (1980) Birth at Home. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
45. KITZINGER, S. (1990) Editorial, International Home Birth Movement (British Section Newsletter), Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-3.
46. KITZINGER, S. (1991) Homebirth and other alternatives to hospital. London: Dorling Kinderley.
47. KLOOSTERMAN, G.J. (1978) The Dutch System of home births', in S. Kitzinger and J. Davis (editors) The Place of Birth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
48. KUHN, T.S. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
49. LANE, K (1995) The medical model of the body as a site of risk: a case study of childbirth', in J. Gabe (editor) Medicine, Health and Risk. Oxford: Blackwell.
50. LANGTON, P.A. (1991) 'Competing occupational ideologies, identities, and the practice of nurse-midwifery', Current Research on Occupations and Professions Vol. 6, 149-177.
51. LAZARUS, E. (1997) 'What do women want? Issues of Choice, Control, and Class in American Pregnancy and Childbirth' in R. Davis-Floyd and C.F. Sargent (editors) Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
52. LICHTMAN, R. (1999) 'Medical models and midwifery: the cultural experience of birth', in: E. van Teijlingen, G. Lowis, P. McCaffery and M. Porter (editors) Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science.
53. LITOFF, J.B. (1986) The American Midwife Debate: a Sourcebook on its Modern Origins. New York: Greenwood Press
54. LOWIS, G.W. and MCCAFFERY, P.G. (1999) 'Sociological factors affecting the medicalization of midwifery', in: E. van Teijlingen, G. Lowis, P. McCaffery and M. Porter (editors) Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science.
55. LUMEY, L.H. (1993) 'Illness versus Natural Process: Competing Paradigms in Great Britain and the Netherlands', in E. Abraham-Van der Mark (editor) Successful Home Birth and Midwifery: The Dutch Model. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey.
56. MACINTYRE, S. (1977) The myth of the golden age', World Medicine, Vol. 12, (Issue June 15), pp. 17-22.
57. MECHANIC, D. (1968) Medical Sociology: A selective view. New York: The Free Press.
58. MITCHELL, G.D. (1979) A New Dictionary of Sociology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
59. MARTIN, E. (1989) The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
60. MAY, C. (2001) 'Pathology, identity and the social construction of alcohol dependence', Sociology, vol.35, no.2, pp.385-401.
61. MAYNARD, M. (2001) 'Feminism and postmodernism in social theory' in R.G. Burgess and A. Murcott (editors) Developments in Sociology, Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
62. MURPHY-BLACK, T. (1992) A Survey of Systems of Midwifery Care in Scotland. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Nursing Research Unit.
63. NASH, A. and NASH J.E. (1979) 'Conflicting interpretations of childbirth: The medical and natural perspectives', Urban Life, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp.493-512.
64. NORDENFELT, L. (1987) On the Nature of Health: An Action-Theoretic Approach. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
65. OAKLEY, A. (1979) Becoming a Mother. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
66. OAKLEY, A. (1980) Women Confined: Towards a Sociology of Childbirth. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
67. OAKLEY, A. (1984) The Captured Womb: A History of the Medical Care of Pregnant Women. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
68. OAKLEY, A. (1999) 'Who cares for women? Science versus love in midwifery today', in E. van Teijlingen, G. Lowis, P. McCaffery and M. Porter (editors) Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science.
69. OAKLEY, A. and HOUD, S. (1990) Helpers in Childbirth: Midwifery Today, London: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation.
70. OLDMAN, C. (2002) 'Later life and the social model of disability: a comfortable partnership?, Ageing & Society, Vol. 22, pp. 791-806.
71. PAGE, L. (1988) The Midwife's Role in Modern Health Care', in S. Kitzinger (editor) The Midwife Challenge. London: Pandora.
72. PAINE, L., L. (2001) It's time to 'think different' about the art and science of midwifery, Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health, Vol. 46, No. 1, p. 1.
73. PORTER, M. (1999) The midwife in contemporary industrialised society', in: E. van Teijlingen, G. Lowis, P. McCaffery and M. Porter (editors) Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science.
74. RAJAN, L. (1993) 'Perceptions of pain and pain relief in labour: the gulf between experience and observation', Midwifery, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 136-45.
75. REID, M. (1989) 'Sisterhood and Professionalisation: A Case Study of the American Lay Midwife', in S.C. McClain (editor) Women as Healers: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
76. ROOKS, J. (1983) The context of nurse-midwifery in the 1980s: our relationships with medicine, nursing, laymidwives, consumers and health care economist', Journal of Nurse-midwifery, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp.3-8.
77. ROOKS, J.P. (1999) The midwifery model of care', Journal of Nurse-midwifery, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp.370-374.
78. ROSE, G. (1982) Deciphering Social Research. London: Macmillan.
79. ROSENGREN, W.R. (1962) 'Social instability and attitudes toward pregnancy as a social role', Social Problems, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 371-378
80. ROTHMAN, B.K. (1982) In Labor: Women and the Power in the Birthplace. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
81. ROTHMAN, B.K. (1983) 'Midwives in transition: the structure of a clinical revolution', Social Problems, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp.261-271.
82. ROTHMAN, B.K. (2001) 'Spoiling the pregnancy: Prenatal diagnosis in the Netherlands', in R. DeVries, C., Benoit, E. van Teijlingen and S. Wrede (editors) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge.
83. SAKALA, C. (1993) 'Midwifery care and out-of-hospital birth settings: how do they reduce unnecessary cesarian section births?', Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 37, No. 10, pp.1233-1250.
84. SAVAGE, W. (1986) A Savage Enquiry: Who controls childbirth? London: Virago.
85. SCHUMAN, A.N. and MARTEAU, T.M. (1993) 'Obstetricians' and midwives' contrasting perceptions of pregnancy', Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, Vol. 11, No.2, pp. 115-118.
86. SHAW, R. (2002) The ethics of the birth plan in childbirth management practices', Feminist Theory, Vol. 3, No.2, pp.131-149.
87. STAPLETON, H. (1997)'Choice in the face of uncertainty', in M.J. Kirkham and E.R. Perkins (editors) Reflections on Midwifery, London: Baillière Tindall.
88. SYMON, A. (2002) The significance of time factors in cerebral palsy litigation', Midwifery, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 35-42.
89. TEIJLINGEN VAN, E.R. (1994) A social or medical model of childbirth? Comparing the arguments in Grampian (Scotland) and the Netherlands. Unpublished PhD, Aberdeen, UK: University of Aberdeen.
90. TEIJLINGEN VAN, E. and BRYAR, R. (1996) 'Selection guidelines for place of birth', Modern Midwife, Vol. 6, No. 8, pp. 24-27.
91. TEIJLINGEN VAN, E.R. (2003) 'Dutch Midwives: The Difference between Image and Reality' in S. Early & G. Letherby (editors) Gender, Identity and Reproduction: Social Perspectives. London: Palgrave.
92. THOMSON, A. (1994) 'Research into some aspects of care in labour', in S. Robinson and A. Thomson (editors) Midwives, Research and Childbirth Vol. 3, London: Chapman and Hall.
93. TOO, S. (1996) 'Do birth plans empower women? A study of their views', Nursing Standard, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 33-37.
94. WAGNER, M. (1986) The medicalisation of birth', in Claxton, R. (ed.) Birth Matters: Issues and Alternatives in Childbirth. London: Unwin Paperbacks.
95. WAGNER, M. (1994) Pursuing the Birth Machine: The search for appropriate technology. Camperdown, NSW, Australia: ACE Graphics
96. ZANDER, L., LEE-JONES, M. and FISHER, C. (1978) The role of the primary health care team in the management of pregnancy', in S. Kitzinger and J. Davis (editors) The Place of Birth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.