Confining risk: choice and responsibility in childbirth in a risk society.

ABSTRACT

The language of risk in relation to pregnancy practices is available to and invoked by not only women who are contemplating pregnancy, the currently pregnant, and mothers, but also the never to be pregnant. Beyond the dozens of leaflets and posters which warn about all kinds of hazards that women face during their pregnancy and impending birth, there is a multitude of messages within the media where women are told about the inherent faultiness of their bodies. These women are told about invisible killers lurking in their ignorance. Yet, blame is allocated to those who fail to inform themselves about the risks that they face. Risk, according to the works of Beck and Giddens, has become a force of social change. It can be seen to actively shape our concept of health, desire for perfection, and our relationship to technology and responsibility. It is these themes which are noticeably absent from previous research in the area of sociology of childbirth and can capture more adequately the ideological shift which this article examines. It is argued, through the scrutinizing gaze of the public, that the pregnant woman is the least able to escape the consequences of risk society where changed notions of health and responsibility have created a cultural acceptance of medical intervention of childbirth.

KEY WORDS

Sociology, risk society, reproduction, medicalisation, responsibility, agency

A painting of an extremely expectant and wealthy young woman hangs on the walls of the Tate Britain gallery of London. The Portrait of an Unknown Lady (ca. 1595) by the Elizabethan artist, Marcus Gheeraerts II, is one of many 'pregnancy portraits' which reveals to the modern day observer not only the 'dynastic pride' of the family but also what Karen Hearn, the curator of the Tate gallery, calls a 'haunting anxiety [...] which expresses the real possibility that a beloved partner may be about to die' (cited in Kennedy 2002). These 17th century Elizabethan portraits often depict women who wear expressions of fear and anxiety. In fact, Hearn reveals that records demonstrate that some portraits were commissioned by pregnant women who had premonitions of their death through childbirth. This was discovered by the literary parallel of these paintings in the many 'mother's legacy' letters that were written by pregnant women to their unborn children.

The statistics for death in childbirth for that particular place and time were approximately one in a hundred women, a stark contrast to that of today where the Australian mortality rates are approximately 13 per 100,000 confinements (Madden 2003). Even so, women in the Western world seem to be just as anxious about pregnancy and birth as their 17th century counterparts. Take for example the following quote:

 
   I think women are more anxious about birth 
   today because their expectations are so much 
   higher. They want perfection--an emotionally 
   wonderful experience; an easy, painless delivery; 
   a perfect baby; instant bonding. But in the back 
   of their minds, they know it can go wrong. With 
   more information and new technology, women 
   expect to have the perfect labour, and it's a huge 
   disappointment if it doesn't go well. 
 
  (Saunders, cited in Steyn 2001: 23)