A few days ago I read in an nursing magazine an article entitled “Pregnant bodies and social order. Speeches and practices in pregnancy ”which I found interesting as a starting point for some reflections related to pregnancy.
Its author, Mª Jesús Montes Muñoz, introduces us to him by describing the current vision of women within society.
The maternal role is attributed to women as the first moral and natural function to which they must respond and the moment of pregnancy is associated with a vulnerable and imperfect body It must be controlled and monitored.
"Gestation is therefore an ideal time for the exercise of control and indoctrination in the order in which women should be socially placed and in which they are expected to remain." Take advantage of the moment of pregnancy, when the woman becomes a future mother, to send messages of insecurity (you must do x analytics, x ultrasounds, x tests to make sure your child is well), defenseless (quiet, leave it in our hands ...), of guilt (don't eat so much, eat a little more, don't take this, don't walk so much, walk a little, you can't do this, you can't do the other ...) and get this way reinforce the stereotype of female inferiority.
Something like "if we leave it in your hands, your baby will not survive." It sounds strong, but who has not ever thought about how irresponsible that mother is, that in all pregnancy she has not gone to be checked?
The woman's body becomes a "Suspicious body" which must be monitored by the experts and taken care of by the mother in a different way than it had been.
Pregnant women are given supplements of all kinds (vitamins, iron) by protocol, being in many cases unnecessaryThey are subjected to innumerable tests that make many pregnant women think that they really suffer from these disorders and that they feel insecure towards their own, denying their own sensations and distrusting the physiological process itself.
"The discourse of risk, beyond its prevention functions, comes to reaffirm the medical power and social and ideological control of women."
The woman is responsible for the development of the fetus based on her way of acting during pregnancy. What and how much they eat, what and how much they drink, how much they walk, what emotional state they are in, how much they work, etc.
Everything must be controlled so that the fetus goes well and if there is a problem, maybe it is because the mother did something ...
The conclusion reached by the author is that I think we should all reach: Pregnancy controls are very valid and useful, but it must be taken into account that the results are almost always normal. They should be carried out from a more collaborative prism with the woman to be more involved in her health and her body that is not more than that of a pregnant woman, and therefore that of a woman who should be treated as a person healthy and I don't eat a sick person.
