Exploring Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology: a perfect fit for midwifery research

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. OBJECTIVES: 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. DISCUSSION: 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.