Abstract
This qualitative study is based on interviews with eighteen Aotearoa New Zealand based midwives conducted during 2014 on the topic of how they incorporated providing information about genetic testing for Down syndrome into their professional practice. Following a hiatus from 2015 to 2020 when I was myself busy with childbirth and parenting, I then returned to the project to update literature and conduct the analysis of these interviews. I did this with an awareness of slight changes in genetic testing availability and form over this period of time, but also in the recognition that much remained the same for the midwives I had first spoken to in 2014. My key findings are that midwives struggle to balance their professional practice against a press of several issues which push them towards more medicalized forms of care. The provision of information about genetic screening and testing for Down syndrome is one significant element of this pressure. Compared to studies of other midwives around the world, the New Zealand midwives in this study were generally better informed about genetic testing than their international counterparts and confident of their ability to impart this information to their clients; but for the most part, they were concerned that the amount of time it took to do so, the timing of the discussion and the inevitable sway that a health professional held in discussing such matters might force a more medicalized view of pregnancy onto their clients than what is embedded within the New Zealand midwifery model of care.