Bonny babies? Motherhood and nurturing in the age of obesity

摘要

The ‘bonny’ baby is traditionally the prized emblem of good health, yet there has been speculation that within the context of rising levels of obesity and diabetes within childbearing populations that this may change. Within epidemiological understandings, obesity and diabetes in pregnancy are strongly implicated in the increasing numbers of very large babies. Given the power of biomedical risk discourses to shape women's experiences of pregnancy, motherhood and infant feeding, lay understandings of infant size/health and the ‘bonny’ baby are perhaps subject to revision. This paper, draws upon critical obesity studies and contemporary commentaries regarding ‘parental causality’ to discuss the medicalisation (through BMI) and moralisation of large bodies in pregnancy as ‘obese’ and (by implication) the creation of subjects ‘at risk’ to themselves and their foetus/infant. Through an analysis of longitudinal interview data from large-bodied women in their transitions to motherhood, this paper explores how this powerful biomedical discourse plays out in women's reported interactions with maternity professionals in pregnancy, birth and the months that follow. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of such findings for contemporary parenting, policy and professional practice.