4.2 Strategies to Obtain the Ideal Pregnant Body
4.2.1 Medicalizing Maternity on Their Own Terms
Like me, many of my informants vividly recalled how they first found out that they were expecting. Siti related how she first knew about her pregnancy when her body “felt different. It just felt different”. Similarly, Hasanah “felt tired and exhausted. I kept getting headaches”. Even though they felt changes in their
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bodily compartments, both relied on medical technology to confirm their pregnancies. Hasanah went to the doctor to take a urine test whilst Siti “had to take seven pregnancy tests just to confirm”. These examples seem to support the thesis that medicalization has brought about the masculinization of the pregnancy experience, alienating women from their bodily proceedings (see Young, 1984;
Kristeva, 1986; Oakley, 1984). It seems that the pregnancy experience is disembodied (Manderson, 1998). Medicine, in the form of the ubiquitous pregnancy test, caused my informants to devalue their own “privileged relation”
with their bodies (Young, 1984: 46). Yet, such an analysis cannot explain why Ms. Su felt that “there is no point going to the gynae during the last two pregnancies” since from her previous experiences the gynecologist “is going to only do the ultrasound and not turn up during my labor”. Nor, is it able to illuminate why Hasanah wanted to attend Doula Hanani‟s gentle birthing class after realizing from her first pregnancy that the prenatal classes conducted by nurses “lacked the personal touch” and hence was ineffective in helping her manage her pregnancy and childbirth. Likewise, such an analysis cannot justify how Diana and Dijah actively searched for the perfect gynecologist:
“I wanted someone supportive. So I looked online, I read online forums for reviews on the various different gynecologists. I also asked my sisters and mum about their own experiences with their gynaes until I found the gynae that I am going to today. I like her. She is what I want in a gynae; very motherly, very patient, very caring.” (Dijah)
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Even though my informants subscribed to the discourse on the ideal mother laid out in Chapter 1, they regulated the way in which medicine was to intervene in their embodied practices. The preceding examples showcase how the accumulation of experiential and empathic embodied knowledge has shaped the way my informants made decisions regarding the medical management of their pregnant bodies. Lorentzen (2008) defines experiential embodied knowledge as knowledge garnered from one‟s body‟s previous encounters with medicine.
Empathic knowledge refers to knowledge gathered from other people‟s experiential knowledge of their encounters with medicine. The acquisition of these forms of knowledge empowers women against future domineering medical management. However, it is evident from these narratives that such accumulation of knowledge is not always a result of a desire to defy medical authority. Instead, my informants utilized the knowledge to support their endeavor to become a successful cocoon for the growing fetus. Hasanah‟s account exemplified this:
“The other day I had slight cramps so I asked her (Doula Hanani) if it is normal to have slight cramps.
She told me that it‟s normal but if it gets severe then I have to monitor myself for the next 24 hours. So I monitored myself for the next 24 hours and it was ok. I just see if the cramps continued or if it got more severe than the one I experienced. But so far, I felt fine after that. So I told her ok I feel fine, we will just leave it at that because if it gets worse, more painful, then I think we need to go to the doctor.”
Zola (1972: 496) posited that our dependence on medicine is because
“everyone has or believes he has something organically wrong with him, or put more positively, how much can be done to make one feel, look or function
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better”. The acceptance of the discourse that predicts the potential failure of the pregnant body as a container has resulted in my informants falling back on medicine for reassurance that their bodies are functioning well as the fetus‟
vessel. This then supports Bartky‟s (1990: 72) claim that medical technologies of maternity “are taken up and practiced by women against the background of a pervasive sense of bodily deficiency”. Such can be seen in Hasanah‟s conversation above whereby she fears the potential failure of her body. She also informed me that she has not seen a gynecologist because her pregnancy was not high risk. Yet, she will be having her first appointment when she is 20 weeks pregnant. In Singapore, women go through a detailed anomaly ultrasound scan to identify fetal defects around that time. Hasanah was one of my informants who was extremely against medical intervention. Yet, her need to see the gynecologist at that period illustrates her unwillingness to completely stave off her dependence on the medical community in order to ensure her success as a pregnant container.
As such, medical technology has been appropriated to calm one‟s fear of being a failed vessel. A failed body marks one‟s failure at being a good mother. Medicine is then a resource in managing and validating one‟s embodied acts as reflective of a good maternal vessel. Rini‟s narrative of her current pregnancy after experiencing two miscarriages is an example of this:
“I would buy little gifts for my twins after every round of ultrasound just to mark the success of the progress of the pregnancy. Nothing big, just a pacifier that sort of stuff. Just to celebrate.”
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My conversation with Rini then made me question the view that medical technology especially that of ultrasound imagery marks the disembodiment of the pregnant experience (see Young, 1984; Hockey and Draper, 2005). Rini employed medical technology as a tool to manage her embodied acts. However, it was also the yardstick on which she can verify the desirability of her agency.
Therefore, I concur with Nash‟s (2007) viewpoint of ultrasound imagery as only being meaningful when it is “relevant to our activity in the world” (Nash, 2007:
69). It is my informants who give meaning to the ultrasound imagery as they
“implicate themselves in the „narrative‟ of fetal „life‟ through the ultrasound screen; the fetal information on the screen would not exist without a mother”
(Nash, 2007:69). This better clarifies why my informants ceased upon the ultrasound image to validate their management of their pregnant bodies. So Dijah relied on the ultrasound images which showed her twins growing well to justify her “naughty” behavior of not eating her prenatal vitamins.
Besides, medicine can also act as a tool against other impositions and incursions into one‟s embodied efforts. This can be seen in Siti‟s narration of her boss‟ disapproval of her breastfeeding while pregnant:
“So I told my boss that my gynae says that as long as there are no complications, because I do ask my gynae some questions. Some people say I cannot breastfeed, like my aunty says I cannot do it already because I have to keep the rest for my second one.
Why should I keep for the second one because this is an on-going thing? There is a supply. So if I stop and then what is my son going to drink? Although now he can take soya bean or fresh milk or
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whatever but why must I stop because he doesn‟t show any sign of wanting to stop. And my gynae said that he will show you if he doesn‟t want already. She said he will want to stop, not we who tell him when to stop. And I love the bonding between myself and him. I love the journey.”
Such an account supports Giddens (1991: 7) suggestion that the relationship between the lay person and medical technology is not simply that of passive acquiescing or active rejection but a “mixture of attitudes of reverence and reserve, approval and disquiet, enthusiasm and antipathy”. My informants‟
decision to adopt or deny medical encroachment was based on whether it aided in describing, supporting and depicting their pregnant embodiments towards success.