1. Pregnancy and breastfeeding
Week 16 Sociology of Human Reproduction

2. Recap Considered the family as a social construction
Look at motherhood and fatherhood
Considered the concept of ‘good motherhood’

3. Outline Look at the issue of surveillance in pregnancies
Consider the concept of foetal personhood
Examine breastfeeding as a marker of ‘good motherhood’

4. Social construction of pregnancy
Balsamo argues that 3 key areas of thinking about pregnancy
Women lose ownership of their bodies
Lose rights as an individual
The developing foetus has an ascendant right
Should be considered first
Pregnancy is so ‘wondrous’ that
women should endure anything
to experience it
Discomfort, hardship, humiliation

5. What do you think of these ideas
What do you think of these ideas? Do they seem to fit with your understandings?

6. Losing ownership
Visibly pregnant women become the subject of intense surveillance
Surveillance from medical
and health professionals
Surveillance from family, friends and general public

7. Medical Surveillance
Oakley argues that pregnancy has moved from a natural condition to a medical one
Women expected to submit to:
Regular monitoring
Prenatal tests
Medical advice
The uncertainly these provide lead to ‘tentative’ pregnancies

8. Medical Surveillance
Women who do not comply with medical directives are seen as deviant
Women are told that pregnancy
is a ‘natural function’
‘Normal’ pregnancy is only a retrospective label

9. Public surveillance Pregnant women are often seen as public property
Advice is given by family, friends and complete strangers
Deviant behaviour can be censored
Smoking and drinking particularly commented on
Women are taught both to expect this, but to position it as less important than ‘medical’ knowledge

10. Public surveillance
‘Once you're pregnant people may give you unsolicited advice and opinions on your behaviour, diet, birth and feeding choices - some of them may be relatives and friends, but some may be complete strangers (…) Ask someone whose opinion you trust about what you've heard or read. Talk to your midwife at your next antenatal appointment, or if it's really bothering you, phone the clinic’

11. Do women lose ownership of their bodies during pregnancy?
If so, is this a problem?

12. Foetal imaging
Surveillance of the developing foetus has intensive due to developments in imaging technologies
Xrays to ultrasound scanning
Scanning becoming routinised
This has lead increasingly to changing perceptions of the
foetus and pregnancy

13. Foetal ascendancy?
Increasingly the foetus is being considered a patient in its own right
Foetal wellbeing being
should take precedent
over women’s wellbeing
Women seen as a ‘risk’ to their developing foetus

14. Maternal/Foetus conflict
Women’s behaviour can be sanctioned if pose a ‘risk’ to the foetus
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome
Forced caesarean sections
Reaffirms the right of both medical and general public to police women’s behaviour

15. Maternal/Foetus conflict
Conceptualising of potential conflict between women and foetus obscures the role of the health professional
The ‘conflict’ is often a rejection
of medical advice
Focusing on the risk to the ‘innocent victim’ reaffirms both medical power though conceptualising women as potential abusers.

16. Does the concept of foetal personhood undermine women as autonomous citizens?

17. Breastfeeding
As well as pregnancy, infant feeding has become a symbol of ‘good’ motherhood
‘The Government is fully committed to the promotion of breastfeeding, which is accepted as the best form of nutrition for infants to ensure a good start in life’
Similar to during pregnancy, women are expected to consider their babies welfare
above any concerns of their own.

18. Political feeding
The majority of women in the UK feed their babies formula milk all or some of the time
Yet this normal practice is officially sanctioned
Women who choose not to breastfeed are potentially failures at motherhood

19. Choosing formula milk
Lee found women choose formula milk for a variety of reasons:
Breastfeeding was difficult
Easier to share workload
Practical for returning to work
Regained ‘ownership’ of their bodies
Most of the reasons were positive rather than negative for women’s lives

20. Choosing formula milk
Yet despite these positive reasons and the availability of safe alternatives many women felt guilty
Concerns related to the public promotion of breastfeeding
Damaging babies health
Failing as mothers
Breastfeeding mother is the symbol of good motherhood

21. Many women choose formula milk as a way of gaining back control over their lives
Should the nutritional benefits of breastfeeding take priority?

22. Conflicting agendas?
Women do need support during pregnancy and breastfeeding
Campaigns to improve maternity services
Campaigns for the ‘right’ to breastfeed
But can reinforce the pressure to conform to ‘good’ motherhood

23. Natural childbirth?
In the late 20th century women campaigned for a return to ‘natural’ childbirth
Achieved some success in challenging medical power
Birth plans
But undermined women’s rights
to choose ‘unnatural’ options
Reaffirmed pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding as purely biological rather
than social conditions

24. ‘Too posh to push’ Rise in numbers of women choosing caesarean births
Often publicly denounced
‘Lifestyle’ reasons not acceptable
Cost to NHS
Women are encouraged to consider what sort of birth they want, but only if that is the ‘natural’ option.

25. Summary
Pregnancy is a public condition within which women are expected to submit to surveillance
Growth of imaging technologies has lead to the idea of the foetus as a person
Pregnancy and breastfeeding are constructed in relation to good motherhood’