Risky Responsibilities: Maternal Bodies and Medical Imaginations of Pregnancy Loss in the U.K.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sci
Abstract
Modern biomedicine has dramatically improved foetal survival and reduced the risk of late stillbirth. I propose a PhD project that examines the implications of a medicine striving to prevent pregnancy loss. Collaborating with medical researchers, I seek to integrate concerns around risk-prevention with the intimate experiences of mothers-to-be. Pregnancy loss is a personal event and medical phenomenon. This PhD places pregnancy and its risks within the interface of social and scientific concerns to determine its politics of reproduction.
Review of Related Literature:
Whilst pregnancy loss is statistically a common experience in women's reproductive lives, its occurrence is at odds with expectations of pregnancy as a journey ending with a live and healthy baby and a woman-turned-mother (Layne 2014:171, Cecil 1994:1415). This project is thus concerned with the production of biomedical discourse and procedures of pregnancy surveillance, that is, the attempt to avoid pregnancy loss. Pregnancy in the U.K. locates reproductive responsibilities in the pregnant woman (ibid., Ross 2016). That is, she is responsible to attend appointments, track her health, and monitor any changes in her pregnancy.
In the first part of this PhD I thus want to ask:
How do medical protocols for risk-prevention in pregnancy imagine and construct the maternal and the fetal body?
How and where does medical research into pregnancy loss locate reproductive responsibilities?
The second part of this research is concerned with the social, personal and medical reality of loss as experienced by mothers and parents. With loss to be avoided, bereaved parents often remain invisible from services on the maternity ward and their social environment. Reducing pregnancy loss framed as "enabling life" assumes that the life of a stillborn has never and does not exist. Katz Rothman (2000) on the other hand argues that there is a process of iterative, one-sided construction of personhood on part of the parent, establishing a life that can be imagined, maybe even felt. What pregnancy "loss" thus signifies, is that something has existed and may in fact remain. Linda Layne's research examines pregnancy as a rite of passage into parenthood. If pregnancy does not result in a live birth, she asks, is parenthood lost? (Layne 2014). The guiding questions for this second part are:
How is pregnancy loss articulated and situated in the reproductive experience of mothers?
How do parents negotiate the medicine of pregnancy loss with their expectations of pregnancy and birth?
Methodology and Field Sites:
I aim to answer these questions through a 12-month ethnographic study in Edinburgh, split in two parts. Edinburgh hosts the Edinburgh Tommy's Centre for Maternal and Fetal Health as well as a number of dedicated bereavement charities. In order to establish how researchers at the Tommy's Centre formulate pregnancy loss, I will interview the research staff. Throughout this period, I will analyse publications and documents on pregnancy loss and prevention protocols intended for medical, academic and lay audiences.
During the second six-month period I will engage with parents and in particular mothers, who have experienced pregnancy loss. Having already established a working relationship with local charities such as SANDs and Tommy's, I aim to use their expertise in bereavement work to develop a sensitive vocabulary and conduct. This part of my research will also include an analysis of any material memorabilia of the pregnancy and stillborn child.
Working in collaboration with medical researchers and charities, I hope to contribute and reflect on their practice and shape how pregnancy loss in the UK is articulated and discussed. This PhD will contribute to a de-stigmatisation of loss and provide feminists insights into the socio-medical realities of female reproduction.
Review of Related Literature:
Whilst pregnancy loss is statistically a common experience in women's reproductive lives, its occurrence is at odds with expectations of pregnancy as a journey ending with a live and healthy baby and a woman-turned-mother (Layne 2014:171, Cecil 1994:1415). This project is thus concerned with the production of biomedical discourse and procedures of pregnancy surveillance, that is, the attempt to avoid pregnancy loss. Pregnancy in the U.K. locates reproductive responsibilities in the pregnant woman (ibid., Ross 2016). That is, she is responsible to attend appointments, track her health, and monitor any changes in her pregnancy.
In the first part of this PhD I thus want to ask:
How do medical protocols for risk-prevention in pregnancy imagine and construct the maternal and the fetal body?
How and where does medical research into pregnancy loss locate reproductive responsibilities?
The second part of this research is concerned with the social, personal and medical reality of loss as experienced by mothers and parents. With loss to be avoided, bereaved parents often remain invisible from services on the maternity ward and their social environment. Reducing pregnancy loss framed as "enabling life" assumes that the life of a stillborn has never and does not exist. Katz Rothman (2000) on the other hand argues that there is a process of iterative, one-sided construction of personhood on part of the parent, establishing a life that can be imagined, maybe even felt. What pregnancy "loss" thus signifies, is that something has existed and may in fact remain. Linda Layne's research examines pregnancy as a rite of passage into parenthood. If pregnancy does not result in a live birth, she asks, is parenthood lost? (Layne 2014). The guiding questions for this second part are:
How is pregnancy loss articulated and situated in the reproductive experience of mothers?
How do parents negotiate the medicine of pregnancy loss with their expectations of pregnancy and birth?
Methodology and Field Sites:
I aim to answer these questions through a 12-month ethnographic study in Edinburgh, split in two parts. Edinburgh hosts the Edinburgh Tommy's Centre for Maternal and Fetal Health as well as a number of dedicated bereavement charities. In order to establish how researchers at the Tommy's Centre formulate pregnancy loss, I will interview the research staff. Throughout this period, I will analyse publications and documents on pregnancy loss and prevention protocols intended for medical, academic and lay audiences.
During the second six-month period I will engage with parents and in particular mothers, who have experienced pregnancy loss. Having already established a working relationship with local charities such as SANDs and Tommy's, I aim to use their expertise in bereavement work to develop a sensitive vocabulary and conduct. This part of my research will also include an analysis of any material memorabilia of the pregnancy and stillborn child.
Working in collaboration with medical researchers and charities, I hope to contribute and reflect on their practice and shape how pregnancy loss in the UK is articulated and discussed. This PhD will contribute to a de-stigmatisation of loss and provide feminists insights into the socio-medical realities of female reproduction.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Tara Pollak (Student) |