Pregnancy, birth and risk: an introduction

Between blame and care: women's ‘needs talk’ about obesity interventions in prenatal care

“…In general, prenatal care has been a battle ground on which who are entitled to care, what prenatal care should consist of, whether services should be provided by midwives or doctors, and whether foetal needs and maternal needs are considered intertwined or oppositional, are debated (see Barker , Coxon et al . , Rothman ). In order to analyse the way pregnant women understand and position themselves in relation to the need claims and subject positions presented to them through prenatal services, I draw on Fraser to make analytical room for the contestation of needs and women's agency.…”

Ultrasound as a technology of reassurance? How pregnant women and health care professionals articulate ultrasound reassurance and its limitations

“…However, all participants had, or intended to have, routine ultrasound scans, so the seeking of additional scans suggests the need for further interpretation. General expressions of anxiety also seem to reflect the construction of pregnancy as a risky condition (Rothman ), where risks are multiple, diffuse, and often poorly specified. This discourse creates a heightened sense of risk with little concrete information about type or magnitude of risk, whilst making women responsible for self‐surveillance in pursuing a positive pregnancy outcome.…”

“…Scholars have long seen routine use of ultrasound in maternity care as an exemplar of medicalisation (Oakley ). More recently, it is acknowledged that medicalisation is deeply internalised (Rothman ) and managing one's own health through actively engaging with medical technologies has become a moral imperative, especially for women who bear responsibility for their own health and their children's health (Clarke et al . ).…”

Preconception care for infertile couples: Nurses’ and midwives’ roles in promoting better maternal and birth outcomes

“…Allan et al. () argue that women are proactive in seeking pregnancy even if this means greater surveillance by health professionals including increased surveillance of their bodies (Gentile, ; Katz Rothman, ; Lupton, ). At the same time, there is growing evidence that infertile couples proactively and independently, that is, without health professional guidance or interference, manage their infertility and any attempts at achieving parenthood through using ARTs (Hawkins et al., ; Rossi et al., ).…”

“…Preconception care may include the delivery of a number of preventative and interactive programmes (Bortolus et al., ), including advice on lifestyle, to optimise pregnancy outcomes on issues such as folic acid, genetic screening, environmental health, interpersonal violence, planned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, mental health, drug and alcohol use, vaccination programmes, female genital mutilation (FGM) and infertility/subfertility. This advice is important at a societal and individual level and can be empowering, particularly for women (Katz Rothman, ). Delivering preconception care may therefore produce the holistic, woman‐centred care (Royal College of Midwives, ) that nurses wish to provide.…”