Category Archives: Blog Posts

A Roman Amulet for Protection in Childbirth

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, Adam Parker discusses a roman phylactery created by a mother for her pregnant daughter as protection during childbirth. 

 

Discovered by a metal detectorist in 2007 in South Oxfordshire, UK (PAS: BERK-0B6771) this small, inscribed gold sheet is a truly interesting insight into the material strategies of personal protection in Roman Britain. A translation of the text inscribed upon the sheet reveals that this is a phylactery (a protective, magical charm) created by a lady named Terentia to protect her daughter Fabia during childbirth (Tomlin 2008).

The rectangular sheet is tiny. It measures 63.1mm x 28.3mm and weighs 1.41g. The text is all written on one side and is organized in sixteen lines of Greek writing. Although this is the Roman period and we might expect it to be Latin, there are lots of Greek texts from Britain – it might suggest that Fabia had spent time elsewhere in the Roman Empire

 

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The issue of maternal and child mortality: the German sense of the tragic

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, Associate Director of the POP Network writes about the ways 18th century art reflects cultural attitudes toward pregnancy and medical intervention in birthing rooms.

Death during childbirth did not respect age or social class; it occurred more often than recently married women liked to think about. The same could be said of child mortality: if a child survived childbirth the perils of the diseases of early life awaited. In the German Territories of the Holy Roman Empire, the promotion of large families was central to the process of recovery after the Thirty Years’ War. Especially in rural communities this was seen as central to economic recovery even though it was a risk for the mother. This was a social belief supported by state policy, academic publications, and popular literature that would continue well into the 19th Century. .

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Review of Adam Kay, This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor (Picador, 2017)

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, Sara Read reviews a new memoir by Adam Kay. 

This book is record of life on the wards for a newly qualified doctor in the first decade of the twenty-first century. When it came time to specialise the author Adam Kay decided upon obstetrics and gynaecology, and so the memoir provides a doctor’s eye view of the path from junior doctor to senior registrar helping women deliver babies. It deals with many matter-of-fact details of delivery that are sometimes glossed over even in antenatal classes, such as that most women will open their bowels during delivery due to pressure and that it is to be expected.

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Motherhood as rite of passage

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, in the second of a two-part series, Margaret O’Connor explores women’s decision making processes. (part one available here)

Motherhood as rite of passage – What about the rest of us?

As discussed in a separate post, motherhood is a powerful concept which affects women throughout their lives, both by its presence and absence. It can now be a conscious choice, theoretically at least. There is increasing accessibility to reproductive technologies for people with fertility issues. Meanwhile, there is a growing proportion of women who actively choose not to become mothers. This choice is relatively new.

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The Motherhood Decision

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The Motherhood Decision: How do Women Decide and what Influences them?

The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, in the first of a two-part series, Margaret O’Connor explores women’s decision making processes.

Motherhood is a powerful concept which affects women throughout their lives, both by its presence and absence. Motherhood can now be a conscious choice, theoretically at least, to be actively pursued or avoided with medical technology. There is increasing accessibility to reproductive technologies for people with fertility issues. Meanwhile, there is a growing proportion of women who actively choose not to become mothers. This choice is a relatively new experience. Continue reading →

Thank you to Ciara

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As we come to the end of 2017, we thought we would take a moment to thank Ciara Meehan – co-founder and co-director – of the network, who has decided to step down from her role. We wish her all the best with her future endeavours and hope to welcome her back to the committee in the future. Ciara has written several fantastic blogs for the network since it began. So to say farewell here are some of the topics she has fascinated us with.

‘It was quite shocking’: The Day the Government Leader Voted Against his Government’s Legislation on Contraception

Before Mumsnet and What to Expect When You’re Expecting: Women’s Magazines as Sites of Information

 

‘Am I Pregnant?’: Women’s Magazines as a Source of Information

Before Mumsnet and What to Expect When You’re Expecting: Women’s Magazines as Sites of Information

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. This week, network director Ciara Meehan looks at the dissemination of reproductive advice and information to women in 1960s Ireland.

Heidi Murkoff’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting is the biggest selling book for expectant mothers. First published in 1984, over eighteen million copies have since been sold, contributing to the book being named in 2007 by USA Today as one of the most influential books of the past twenty-five years. This household title is part of a well-established publishing tradition catering for pregnant women. As part of my current project on the everyday lives of women in 1960s Ireland, I’ve been researching the sources of information available to pregnant women, looking in particular at magazines and other prescriptive literature.

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Sensitive Services

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. In this week’s post Karolina Kuberska investigates the new protocols surrounding pregnancy loss for Baby Loss Awareness Week.

While researching the experiences of pregnancy loss as well as bereavement care pathways in England, I had the opportunity to see a number of funeral services for pregnancy losses occurring before 24 weeks’ gestation. I was also able to talk about these services with bereavement care providers, including bereavement care crematorium and cemetery managers.

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“For ourselves, for our house, for this”

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. In this week’s post Jeni Buckley considers the  representations of motherhood and pregnancy in Game of Thrones

“For ourselves, for our house, for this”: Dialectics of Maternal Imagination in HBO’s Game of Thrones

Motherhood is a major trope of Game of Thrones, the narrative perhaps most famous for characters such as Daenerys Targaryen; ‘Mother of Dragons’, and Cersei Lannister; the sociopathic queen mother. The HBO television series, based on the novels of George R R Martin, is now a global obsession which arguably outstrips interest in Martin’s seven-book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. Academic interest in the phenomenon is also gaining momentum; this month will see the first international Game of Thrones conference at the University of Hertfordshire, where the George R. R. Martin Society will also be officially launched. My own interest in Game of Thrones centres on the way that pregnancy is presented in the series. For example, the seventh and most recent television installment of the franchise featured the announcement of Queen Cersei’s illegitimate and incestuous pregnancy with her brother-lover, Jamie Lannister. Given the show’s focus on the question of royal succession, it is perhaps inevitable that the issue of pregnancy receives attention; however I want to highlight the way that the representation of highborn pregnancy in the series is part of a wider discourse of maternal imagination and responsibility.

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The Disembodied Mother

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The Perceptions of Pregnancy blog, like the Researchers’ Network, aims to reach beyond boundaries and borders, and to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day. In this week’s post Rachel Botha considers the visual representations of mothers in debates surrounding abortion.

The Disembodied Mother: the representation of motherhood in the visual
culture surrounding the abortion debate.

According to the Eighth Amendment in the Constitution of Ireland the right to life of the unborn is equal to the right to life of the mother. This legislation is ultimately transferred to the visual culture that surrounds the brewing debate of abortion in Ireland. In this piece I shall be honing in on the impact of visualising the foetus, and how it essentially disembodies the pregnant woman to exaggerate ‘life’- the life of the foetus as a separate entity to the mother.

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