The Zero Trimester

Miranda R. Waggoner

ISBN 10: 0520288068 / ISBN 13: 9780520288065

Published by University of California Press, US, 2017

About this Item

A healthy pregnancy is now defined well before pregnancy even begins. Public health messages promote pre-pregnancy health and health care by encouraging reproductive-age women to think of themselves as mothers before they think of themselves as women. This happens despite little evidence that such an approach improves maternal and child health. This book examines the dramatic shift in ideas about reproductive risk and birth outcomes over the last several decades, unearthing how these ideas intersect with the politics of women's health and motherhood at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780520288065

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Zero Trimester
• Publisher: University of California Press, US
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520288068
• ISBN 13: 9780520288065
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 499 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In the United States, a healthy pregnancy is now defined well before pregnancy begins. Public health messages encourage women of reproductive age to anticipate motherhood and prepare their bodies for healthy reproduction—even when pregnancy is not on the horizon. Some experts believe that this pre-pregnancy care model will reduce risk and ensure better birth outcomes than the prenatal care model. Others believe it represents yet another attempt to control women’s bodies.
 
The Zero Trimester explores why the task of perfecting pregnancies now takes up a woman’s entire reproductive life, from menarche to menopause. Miranda R. Waggoner shows how the zero trimester rose alongside shifts in medical and public health priorities, contentious reproductive politics, and the changing realities of women’s lives in the twenty-first century. Waggoner argues that the emergence of the zero trimester is not simply related to medical and health concerns; it also reflects the power of culture and social ideologies to shape both population health imperatives and women’s bodily experiences.

About the Author

Miranda R. Waggoner is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Florida State University.