Title |
I
trusted myself to pick what works for me : the meaning and management
of complementary and alternative medicine during pregnancy |
Creator |
Schmidt, Bethany
|
Publisher |
University of British Columbia |
Date Created |
2015-10-01 |
Date |
2015 |
Description |
Pregnancy
and childbirth are major life events for some women. These experiences
hold great personal and social significance. In Western countries, the
use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) among pregnant women
is on the rise (Bakx, 1991; Eastwood, 2000; Tovey, Easthope, and Adams,
2003). There is little research into pregnant women’s decision-making
when choosing CAM (Adams et al., 2009) or how they negotiate discordant
discourses on pregnancy, health, and wellbeing. This thesis explores the
experiences of pregnant women who access CAM while simultaneously
embracing biomedical knowledge and expertise. This study utilized
semi-structured interviews to explore pregnant women’s decisions to use
CAM within the context of consumer-driven health care, rising
neoliberalism, and the history of the medicalization of women’s bodies.
Foucault’s theory of biopolitics is used as the theoretical framework
for this project. The process of designing an individual prenatal health
care regimen is complex and multi-faceted. The agency on the part of
pregnant women to pick and choose the therapies that suit their own
needs and preferences remains a potentially subversive act in the
context of overarching medical dominance. |
Type |
Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
|
Language |
Eng |
Date Available |
2015-10-24 |
Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada |
DOI |
10.14288/1.0166748 |
Degree |
Master of Arts - MA
|
Program |
Sociology
|
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia |
Graduation Date |
2015-11 |
Campus |
UBCV
|
Scholarly Level |
Graduate |
Rights URI |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/ |
URI |
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/54913 |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace |
Digital Resource Original Record |
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/24/items/1.0166748/source |