title: Mood and birth experience.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Those at the birth of a baby sometimes speak of the experience as significant and meaningful; an experience in which there is an atmosphere or mood that surrounds the occasion. This paper explores this mood, its recognition, disclosure and how we attune or not to it. The paper is philosophically underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology. The Heideggerian notion of "attunement to mood" is used to interpret this phenomenon. This paper describes how such a mood becomes visible.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, 14 tape-recorded transcribed interviews, each about an hour long, were conducted over 8 months from mothers, birth partners, midwives and obstetricians. The stories crafted from these transcripts have been interpreted alongside my own preunderstandings and related literature. Appropriate ethical approval was gained.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Analysis suggests that there is a positively construed mood of joy at birth that can be concealed when disrupted. Disturbing this mood has the effect of exposing the world of birth and its inherent activities and feelings revealing possible meanings inherent in the lived birth experiences. Disturbances at birth provide distinctions and tensions in which a concealed constitutive mood at birth can be seen. This paper provides insight towards a deeper appreciation into how the sacred joy of birth may be protected.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The way in which we attune to birth may have consequences to birth outcomes and to the experience of childbirth. The consequences of these findings for those in the world of birth are discussed.
authors.affiliation: AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. Electronic address: scrowthe@aut.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Crowther
authors.affiliation: AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Liz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Smythe
authors.affiliation: AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Deb
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Spence
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007743:Labor, Obstetric / Q000523:psychology*; D008016:Life Change Events; D008880:Midwifery; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D009520:New Zealand; D009721:Nurse Midwives; D036801:Parturition / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy
keywords: Attunement; Birth; Disturbance; Hermeneutic phenomenology; Joy; Mood