In search of a prerequisite for infant participation in pregnancy: a depth-hermeneutical interpretation of conversations between coming mothers and midwives

Abstract

Based on the fact that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) gives the right to participate and be heard in situations that affect their lives to all children, even pre-verbal infants, we have looked for the infant voice in parental narratives about their child. Conversations between 16 mothers and a professional at two stages were videotaped and transcribed. The first conversation between mother and midwife took place in pregnancy and, the second, between mother and health nurse, was completed when the child was about six months old. We wanted to invent a method that could find the voice of pre-verbal children, even before birth, a method capable of registering the child’s impact on us and decoding this influence into common language and practical action. Based on infant research on intersubjectivity and qualitative methodology from psychosocial research, we developed a procedure of depth-hermeneutical interpretation of the parental narratives. In this article we describe the results from the interpretation of the narratives made in pregnancy. Through the procedure of Scenic-Narrative Microanalysis, a very suitable method of depth-hermeneutic group interpretation, we identified three different areas of conflict or tension in the data material: container versus oneness; openness versus narrowness; and control versus curiosity. A description of the epistemological foundations and the research procedures from data collection to interpretation will be given. The results from the second round of interpretation will be analysed and compared with the results from the pregnancy narratives, and published in a future article.