On healthcare and healing - my inquiry into learning from giving birth too soon - learning from and for liminality

This thesis follows a decade of living life as inquiry. After giving birth prematurely, 400 days spent in neonatal units and years of community-based healthcare interventions for my children, I turned to both action research and healthcare improvement as a path to self-recovery and contribution-making. I describe my starting point of traumatic challenges to my person as a ‘digging the ground while being in it’. This thesis documents my emerging coming to voice, the reframing of my own epistemic power by turning to artful and embodied knowing and the explorations of partnerships between holders of liminal roles in healthcare, such as patients and carers, and healthcare professionals. I give examples of what denotes fruitful action, such as the use of narratives to find common ground. I also illustrate the benefits of more organic forms of action settings, such as the travelling conversation format of a neonatal network parent group. This inquiry highlights the need not only for different voices in healthcare improvement but also for different ways of knowing and expression. I offer insights into the consequences of prematurity, as told by a mother, and against
the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, my learning about liminal times.