title: Exploring Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology: a perfect fit for midwifery research.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology has been used widely to understand the meaning of lived experiences in health research. For midwifery scholars this approach enables deep understanding of women's and midwives' lived experiences of specific phenomena. However, for beginning researchers this is not a methodology for the faint hearted. It requires a period of deep immersion to come to terms with at times impenetrable language and perplexing concepts.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper aims to assist midwives to untangle and examine some of the choices they face when they first come to terms with an understanding of this methodology and highlights the methodology's capacity to reveal midwifery authenticity and holistic practice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The illumination of a selection of various concepts underpinning hermeneutic phenomenology will inform midwives considering this methodology as suitable framework for exploring contemporary midwifery phenomena.
authors.affiliation: Monash University, Gippsland Campus, Churchill, Victoria, Australia. Electronic address: maureen.miles@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miles
authors.forename: Ysanne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Francis
authors.forename: Beverley
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Taylor
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008880:Midwifery / Q000379:methods*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research / Q000379:methods*; D010684:Philosophy; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D011247:Pregnancy; D036301:Qualitative Research
keywords: Heidegger; Hermeneutics; Midwifery; Phenomenology; Qualitative research