Kontrolowanie formy ciężarnego ciała
The pregnant body shape under control

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present the main discourses controlling a pregnant body – biomedical and aesthetic and their internalisation. The first is related to the medicalization of the body during pregnancy and focuses on its surveillance from a perspective of a child’s health and life.The second, which is described in this paper, concerns the image of female body and the patterns of femininity. The article is based on the in-depth interviews conducted with the pregnant women from 28 to 40 years old. The results of the author’s own study, as well as, the secondary data, reveal that the time of pregnancy does not liberate women from a pressure to embody the ideals of femininity, imposed by other women, physicians and media. Moreover, the pregnant body is treated as temporary form of embodiment and due to the practices undertaken by nine months, a body should return back to its “normal” form

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