Using a Narrative Case Study to Facilitate a Holistic Midwifery Care: A Teaching Strategy

Abstract

Ten years ago a follow-up woman programme to assist midwifery students to enhance holistic midwifery care was implemented at a university in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Each student had to select a woman (family) to accompany during pregnancy, delivery and six weeks postnatally. The aim was to use a case study as a teaching strategy in midwifery nursing education in an attempt to ensure that students are responsive to a pregnant family by means of a holistic approach. The purpose of this article is to share the narrative experience of a midwifery student and the pregnant family, and to present the lived experience of the student as a form of evaluation of the programme. A narrative case study design characterised by human-to-human interaction and participant observation was followed. A narrative analysis of the student’s experience led to the development of themes. The findings are consistent with a conscious act that conveys a will and an intention to care as the student empowered the woman to gain knowledge, self-care, self-control, self-healing and self-actualisation. The journey offered a systematic observation of the midwife’s own and the woman’s experience and inner subjective processes of a lived experience that justified the importance of the programme.