Abstract:
This work employs post-structural policy analysis techniques to uncover how a particular representation of the problem that maternity care is intended to fix allows us to explain and address critiques of maternity care in New Zealand. I provide firstly a geneological and discursive discussion of the development of current maternity care policy in the New Zealand context, concluding that the „problem‟ that maternity care policy is intended to fix represents women as consumers, and childbirth as a „normal life event‟ for most women. I then explore the effects of this problem representation, firstly by looking at media, other published, and official reports and critiques of maternity care, and secondly through interviews with new mothers and midwives in New Zealand. The most concerning trends uncovered through this critical investigation is that the representation of women as „consumers‟ places unsustainable demands on midwives, and that the representation of childbirth as a „normal life event‟ creates tensions between women, professionals, institutions and associated structures that result in a lack of communication which has, at times, tragic outcomes. In order to understand how problem representation has this effect, and what we can do about it, I then offer ethics of care and communicative rationality as a means to interpret the relationship between policy problem representation and womens‟ experiences, with comments alternative problem representations and changes to policy to immediately address the concerns identified.
