April 2016
The article “Holy scan” or “picture of the baby?” Biomedicalization and stratification in the use of obstetric ultrasound in Rio de Janeiro is an ethnographic study conducted at public and healthcare facilities in Rio de Janeiro.
In 2003, the researchers Lilian Krakowski Chazan and Livi F.T. Faro followed women in three different Brazilian hospitals in their ultrasound scans.
Their analyses considered the the prenatal imaging techniques, the unequal access to them, and the physician/technology/patient relation. The aim of this study is to investigate how the above mentioned factors impacts sensibilities and perceptions of pregnancy and the construction of bodies (the pregnant woman’s and the fetus’s).
The reserach concludes that the dissemination of (bio)medicalization varies in accordance with the social stratum of the expectant mothers.
Read the full issue of HCSMS’ latest issue: The Biomedicalization of Brazilian Bodies: Anthropological Perspectives (vol.23 no.1 Rio de Janeiro Jan./Mar. 2016).
