Pregnancy in Practice Expectation and Experience in the Contemporary US [Paperback]

Babies are not simply bornthey are made through cultural and social practices. Based on rich empirical work, this book examines the everyday experiences that mark pregnancy in the US today, such as reading pregnancy advice books, showing ultrasound baby pictures to friends and co-workers, and decorating the nursery in anticipation of the new arrival. These ordinary practices of pregnancy, the author argues, are significant and revealing creative activities that produce babies. They are the activities through which babies are made important and meaningful in the lives of the women and men awaiting the childs birth. This book brings into focus a topic that has been overlooked in the scholarship on reproduction and will be of interest to professionals and expectant parents alike.

Sallie Hanis Associate Professor of Anthropology at SUNY College at Oneonta.

Pregnancy in Practiceis a feminist contribution to the anthropology of reproduction in that it explores the quotidian experiences of pregnant women&While her sample is by no means statistically representative of the experiences of American women, the women in her ethnography represent the normative prenatal experience in America. Han successfully demonstrates that the concept of an ordinary or norma pregnancy is a phantom itself. Because of this work, perhaps we can definitively say that all women have ordinary pregnancies, or perhaps none do.? Association for Feminist Anthropology Review

Han provides some thought-provoking insights&[and] shows the ability to step back and survey the landscape as a researcher but also to lean in to the experiences of her research subjects&She adeptly navigates the translation of those experiences into a scholarly project and lays the foundation for future work on this topic. Significantly expanding the demographics of our research bases will allow us to move past the era when the white experience slÃ#