The fear factor of risk - clinical governance and midwifery talk and practice in the UK.

OBJECTIVE: Through the critical application of social theory, this paper will scrutinise how the operations of risk management help to constitute midwives׳ understandings of childbirth in a particular way. DESIGN AND SETTING: Drawing from rich ethnographic data, collected in the southeast of England, the paper presents empirical evidence to critically explore how institutional concerns around risk and risk management impact upon the way midwives can legitimately imagine and manage labour and childbirth. Observational field notes, transcribed interviews with various midwives, along with material culture in the form of documentary evidence will be used to explore the unintended consequences of clinical governance and its risk management technologies. KEY CONCLUSIONS: Through this analysis the fear factor of risk in midwifery talk and practice will be introduced to provide an insight into how risk management impacts midwifery practice in the UK.