Harris Gillian, Connor Linda, Bisits Andrew, Higginbotham Nick
School of Social Sciences, University of Newcastle.
Med Anthropol Q. 2004 Mar;18(1):23-47. doi: 10.1525/maq.2004.18.1.23.
The practice of obstetric ultrasound scans has undergone significant expansion in the last two decades and is now a standard part of many women's antenatal care in Australia as elsewhere. This article reviews recent evidence about the value of obstetric ultrasound, summarizing debates and contradictions in research literature and practitioner guidelines. Pregnant women's interpretations of the significance of ultrasound are examined through multiple interviews with 34 study participants. We find that ultrasound has become an integral part of women's embodied experience of pregnancy, with its own pleasures and dilemmas. The increasing use of the technology has augmented the role of scientific biomedicine in the government of pregnancy. This must be understood in the light of trends toward individualized risk management in which the pregnant woman increasingly takes responsibility for the successful outcome of the pregnancy, in a context where pregnancy is discursively constructed as a risky domain of gendered experience in contemporary Australian society.
在过去二十年里，产科超声扫描的应用得到了显著扩展，如今在澳大利亚以及其他地方，它已成为许多女性产前护理的标准组成部分。本文回顾了有关产科超声价值的最新证据，总结了研究文献和从业者指南中的争议与矛盾之处。通过对34名研究参与者的多次访谈，考察了孕妇对超声意义的解读。我们发现，超声已成为女性孕期身体体验中不可或缺的一部分，有着其自身的乐趣与困境。该技术使用的不断增加，强化了科学生物医药在孕期管理中的作用。鉴于个体化风险管理的趋势，必须从这一角度来理解这一点，即在当代澳大利亚社会，怀孕被话语建构为一个具有性别特征的风险领域，在此背景下，孕妇越来越要为怀孕的成功结果负责。
