6533b82cfe1ef96bd128f5bd
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Newborns with an impairment: discourses of hospital staff.
Tanja Vehkakoskisubject
Postnatal Care030504 nursingbusiness.industryDiscourse analysisCommunication05 social sciencesPublic Health Environmental and Occupational HealthSubject (philosophy)Infant Newborn050401 social sciences methodsInterview dataCongenital AbnormalitiesPersonnel Hospital03 medical and health sciences0504 sociologyNursingProfessional-Family RelationsHealth careMedicineHumansFemale0305 other medical sciencebusinessFinlandQualitative Researchdescription
The birth of a baby with an impairment goes against dominant cultural ideals about a happy event. Therefore, the interaction between professionals and parents is particularly important, from the hospital maternity ward to the home. In this article, the author examines both the representations of neonatal impairments constructed by professionals and the consequent subject positions for these babies with impairments. The study is based on interview data collected among 19 staff members of one Finnish county hospital. The author analyzed the data by means of qualitative discourse analysis and concludes that it would be important for health care professionals to provide many-sided elements for parents to consider in the construction of the image of their baby other than traditional tragically and negatively biased cultural interpretations.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-03-01 | Qualitative health research |