Health policy documents highlight cultural knowledge as a means to achieve health care adapted to the needs of immigrants in Norway. In this article, I argue that other social factors may be as crucial for achieving this goal. Non-western immigrant women who give birth in Norwegian hospitals have a greater risk of complications than others giving birth in the same hospitals. By exploring the guidance offered to immigrant women in a Norwegian health centre I seek to cast light on this inequality. The article explores principles and guidelines for antenatal care and looks at ideals and identity of midwifery as a profession. It examines the antenatal checkups as situations of interaction between parties with unequal status and argues that midwives interacting with immigrant women often hold a double expert status. I underpin this argument through empirical examples of how absence of the pregnant woman's mother or other female family members in Norway and lack of contacts with relevant knowledge about the Norwegian society may limit the sources of information available to immigrant women and subsequently their ability to evaluate the advice they receive from the midwives. Increased awareness about this could facilitate a more equitable and adapted antenatal health care service. © 2016 universitetsforlaget.

Migration Childbirth Pregnancy Medical anthropology Health

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