Assistant Professor of Communication Elizabeth Johnson-Young
Elizabeth Johnson-Young, Associate Professor of Communication, published her work regarding birth trauma experiences in the journal, Qualitative Research Reports in Communication. Stemming from research conducted as part of her Jepson fellowship in 2021, this article reports on the results of qualitative in-depth interviews of women who defined their births as difficult or traumatic. With the increased attention on the still rising maternal mortality rates in the United States and issues such as postpartum depression, this research is an important contribution to the very limited published research in communication on the topic. Themes from the data focused on perceptions and definitions of experiences, as well as the consequences of those perceptions. These findings are then discussed through the lens of Muted Group Theory and the concept of rhetorical ingenuity in uncertainty management, and practical implications for practitioners are briefly discussed, as well.
The article is currently available online and will printed in the next issue. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9BFUGKRZRUACHYD6YDNG/full?target=10.1080/17459435.2024.2307054