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Remember Pregnancy is a State of Health

This chapter argues that pregnancy is a medical condition — a condition to be monitored by doctors. Between seven and eighteen visits to the general practitioner (GP), local authority, or hospital clinic were made during pregnancy by the sample women for antenatal care: the average was thirteen. Going to the doctor suggests illness, and two other features of illness are associated with pregnancy in modern industrialised society: a pregnant woman, like other ‘patients’, is allowed to give up her normal work, and is encouraged to hand over responsibility for the management of her condition to others (the medical profession). Moreover, pregnancy produces unpleasant symptoms, each of which, in other circumstances, can be a sign of illness. Even in pregnancy some of these require medication, a habit not normally associated with health.