'We all think with the same brain': midwives' stories of normal birth in a community of practice.

Abstract‘Normal’ birth is at the heart of midwifery . However, there is very little published research with women and the midwives who cared for them during in ‘normal’ birth. This paper discusses qualitative, reflexive, narrative study, which explored 21 birth stories from 16 midwives using in-depth, largely un-structured interviews.A favourable ethical review was achieved and midwives were recruited as part of a larger study (Darra and Murphy, 2016).The participants were 16 midwives, who had attended 21 ‘normal’ births. The study utilised a qualitative, narrative approach, which was underpinned by a commitment to reflexivity throughout aiming to tell the story of the research participants as faithfully as possible. The midwives’ stories demonstrated that they shared the three crucial characteristics of a ‘community of practice’ however, they used rather technical ways of telling the birth stories and of referring to women, leading one to suspect that their midwifery ‘community of practice’ was highly technocratic. If one considers that people ‘become’ the stories that they tell about themselves this paper questions whether the way in which midwives talk about themselves and their work has an impact on their identity and feelings of autonomy as midwives, and consequently their work as lead professionals in ‘normal’ childbirth