Jacoby M
School of Public Health, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Sci Context. 1995 Spring;8(1):231-48. doi: 10.1017/s0269889700001976.
This paper describes the way in which a simple device, the pregnancy wheel, has been used by the medical profession to impose a new way of measuring and experiencing pregnancy. The change involves counting in weeks instead of counting in months and it is gradually replacing a commonsensical method that had deep physiological and cultural roots. In contrast, the medical methodology of counting forty weeks is more complicated and lacks direct connections to the events of pregnancy. In the encounter between the doctor and the pregnant woman the pregnancy wheel has a variety of uses, among them determinations of the age and estimated size of the fetus. It plays an additiional role, however, in the medicalization of pregnancy by providing the doctor with privileged information. It also influences modes of thinking through the way in which it deals with the question of the beginning of pregnancy, a question that has clear moral implications.
本文描述了一种简单工具——妊娠轮，被医学专业人士用于推行一种测量和体验怀孕的新方式。这种变化包括以周计数而非以月计数，它正逐渐取代一种有着深厚生理和文化根源的常识性方法。相比之下，计算四十周的医学方法更为复杂，且与怀孕事件缺乏直接联系。在医生与孕妇的接触中，妊娠轮有多种用途，其中包括确定胎儿的年龄和估计大小。然而，它通过为医生提供特权信息，在怀孕的医学化过程中发挥了额外作用。它还通过处理怀孕开始的问题来影响思维方式，而这个问题有着明确的道德含义。
