BACKGROUND: Most student midwives are women of childbearing age, and many are mothers. Childbearing, mothering and infant feeding are resonant experiences for women, yet little is known about how they influence student midwives’ developing professional identity. Whilst personal experience is persuasive, evidence-based knowledge is authoritative in contemporary midwifery. Understanding how student midwives manage personal experience can inform student wellbeing support and optimise the maternity care that students provide. AIM: To explore how student midwives give meaning to personal experiential knowledge of childbearing, infant feeding and mothering during midwifery education, and how this shapes their developing professional practice. METHODS: Student midwives at two Universities in England were informed about the research. Eligibility extended to all students who had given birth to and mothered a child, unrestricted by the timing of their pregnancies. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants, informed by diary entries. Interpretative phenomenological analysis informed data collection and analysis. FINDINGS: Findings were summarised by an over-arching theme, capturing how students’ personal histories interwove with service users’: ‘Your story interacts with their story, it just does’. Theme One, ‘What I bring to midwifery: containing multiple selves at work’ showed that participants carried the imprint of varied roles into practice: mother, daughter, student midwife. In Theme Two, ‘Treading a fine line: using personal experience in professional practice’ participants described working mindfully to contain personal childbearing, mothering and infant feeding experiences. At times, they used their embodied, experiential knowledge tentatively to create deeper relationships with mothers. Some engaged in ‘historical steering’ – protecting women from their own experiences of maternity care. In Themes One and Two, managing these different positions revealed contested views of professionalism, with participants seeming to ‘dance’ between engagement and detachment. Theme Three ‘Through a glass darkly: how the course shapes me as a mother’ revealed emotional and practical tensions between participants’ needs and aspirations as mothers and as student midwives. Being part of the midwifery programme was challenging and validating. Evidence-based information brought parenting choices into question, particularly around infant feeding. For pregnant students, the rigid structure of midwifery education could mean compromising the mothering self to preserve midwifery aspirations, creating agonising choices for some. This highlights the need for midwifery education to respond more flexibly to students as mothers, consistent with the personalised approach that is at the heart of midwifery. CONCLUSION: The thesis offers recommendations for practice, education, research and professional regulation. Participants’ use of personal experience constitutes self-disclosure, something not overtly recognised in midwifery, and recommendations focus on developing theoretical and practical understanding of this in midwifery education and practice.
| Date of Award | 5 Jun 2026 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Zoe Darwin (Main Supervisor) & Joyce Marshall (Co-Supervisor) |
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