The Zero Trimester

Miranda R. Waggoner

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780520288065
• eBook ISBN: 9780520963115
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Zero Trimester
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Someday, Now: Preconceiving Risk and Maternal Responsibility
• 2. From the Womb to the Woman: The Shifting Locus of Reproductive Risk
• 3. Anticipating Risky Bodies: Making Sense of Future Reproductive Risk
• 4. Whither Women’s Health? Reproductive Politics and the Legacy of Maternalism
• 5. Get a Reproductive Life Plan! Producing the Zero Trimester
• 6. Promoting Maternal Visions: Gender, Race, and Future Baby Love
• 7. Governing Risk, Governing Women: Anticipatory Motherhood and Social Order
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index