Women's Lived Experiences With Pregnancy and Midwifery in a Medicalized and Fetocentric Context

Abstract

Increasingly, women are subjected to examination throughout pregnancy and childbirth. Historically, pregnancy and childbirth were considered a natural, normal, woman-centered event. Presently, they are conceptualized as a dangerous time when a woman's health and that of her baby are at risk, thus requiring constant medical monitoring and intervention, often under the control of male physicians. As a consequence, women negotiate their experiences with pregnancy in a medicalized and fetocentric ideological context. The collection of stories in this article reveals the social and cultural contexts of women's lived experiences with pregnancy through a feminist lens. Short stories are used to give voice to women's experiences and to assert that women are the experts of their own health and well-being. Moreover, the use of narratives contributes to the dialogue of creative analytic practice and representation fostered by qualitative inquiry and feminist epistemologies.