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Tracing women’s experiences of miscarriage and termination for foetal anomaly in the second trimester, before legal viability, shows how such events are positioned as less ‘real’ or significant when the foetal being does not, or will not, survive. Invisible Labours describes the reproductive politics of this category of pregnancy loss in England. It shows how second trimester pregnancy loss produces specific medical and social experiences, revealing an underlying teleological ontology of pregnancy. Some women then understand their pregnancy through kinship with the unborn baby.
“This book is both a must‐read and exceptionally timely. There is no doubt Middlemiss succeeds in making the multiple types of pain that all the women in this study experienced visible… Cross‐specialty clinicians (nurses and midwives; obstetricians and gynecologists) will no doubt find this book of interest and the additional angle of vision it adds.” • Sociology of Health & Illness
“This book is encouraged for anyone who works within the fields of labor and delivery, and women’s maternal and reproductive mental health, as the text discussed second-trimester loss in a broader and expanded concept from a binary Pro-Life or Pro-Choice stance. Invisible Labours is also recommended reading for a wider audience to overcome the misconceptions of second trimester loss and provide clarification on the complexities and realities of this specific loss. The book is a poignant tribute to families who have experienced a shift in their reproductive journey, particularly for those who have faced second trimester loss.” • OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying
“In this original and conceptually sophisticated project Middlemiss handles incredibly difficult interview material with extraordinary sensitivity and care. She does not shy away from difficult details but makes these often very raw stories more understandable through serious analytic work.” • Linda L. Layne, University of Cambridge
“This is an excellent book … As someone working in the field of reproduction/family studies (though not specifically on pregnancy loss), this book has expanded my thinking regarding how legal, medical, kinship systems and cultures come together in defining our understandings of life/death, personhood and relatedness.” • Leah Gilman, University of Manchester
“This is an excellent, well-written, well researched manuscript on an important and timely issue. The book successfully introduces nuance, contestation, and diversity into constructions of personhood in the English context through detailed exploration of second trimester pregnancy loss.” • Susie Kilshaw, University College London
Aimee Louise Middlemiss is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health, University of Exeter, UK. Her research interests include reproduction, death, personhood, kinship, embodiment, and gender.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Invisible Labours
Part I: the Consequences of Second Trimester Pregnancy Loss
Chapter 1. ‘You Don’t Have a Choice, You Have to Do It’: Diagnosis of the Foetal Body and the Determination of Healthcare Trajectories for Pregnant Women
Chapter 2. ‘They’re Not Supposed to Deal with this Kind of Thing’: Ontological Boundary Work, Discipline, and Obstetric Violence
Chapter 3. What Counts as a Baby and Who Counts as a Mother? Civil Registration and Ontological Politics
Chapter 4. Pregnancy Remains, a Baby, or the Corpse of a Child? Governance Classifications of the Dead Foetal Body
Part II: Disruption and Resistance in Second Trimester Pregnancy Loss
Chapter 5. ‘It Wasn’t All a Figment of My Imagination’: Ontological Disruption and Embodiment
Chapter 6. ‘I Wanted People to Know That They Were My Babies’: Kinship as an Ontology of Resistance
Conclusion: Making Visible the Labours of Second Trimester Pregnancy Loss
References
Index