Intergenerational Reflections on Birth: Story as a Method to Enhance Meaning Making in Prelicensure Nursing Students

ABSTRACT

Stories have been used as a way to educate and inform. An educational activity was created for use with prelicensure nursing students in a maternal infant health course where students had the opportunity to be present to the birth stories of older adults. These stories were transformative and brought new context to how the students understood current-day labor and birth practices. This activity allowed students to see how powerful the birth process is in a woman’s life, in that these memories had the power to transcend time. Students were also able to build relationships and practice their communication skills with older adults, which in turn may also be beneficial for the older adults as well.