The relationality of maternity care: A diffractive analysis of maternity care experiences

Problem: Pervasive polemics of differing approaches to and values of maternity care limit possibilities of nuanced and productive understandings of how maternity care is experienced. Aim: To explore how maternity care identities (midwife, obstetrician. childbearing woman) are shaped by binarised conceptualisations of childbirth. Methods: The diffractive analysis of data gathered in collective biography research groups. Findings and discussion: Maternity care identities are not complete. pre-established entities, but rather are. 'in the making', remade in every maternity care encounter. Conclusion: Maternity care identities are defined by their encounters with other maternity care identities. and therefore, each maternity care identity plays a role in which experiences of maternity care come into being. (C) 2021 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.