Lhe experience of pregnancy and childbirth is a complex construction even in the case where “the mother and the child are doing well”. The ability to give life develops physically and emotionally by integrating intimate personal and family events that are sometimes buried. A mix of strength and fragility, this process generates expectations and fears, with responses that are highly dependent on the medical, but also social and societal environment.
A feminist claim today – which opposes the historical current of this movement – advocates a return to nature in the management of pregnancy, the organization of childbirth and the mother-baby bond. As early as 2010, the philosopher Elisabeth Badinter warned against this guilt-inducing ideology that necessarily makes female fulfillment pass through motherhood, in The dispute. The wife and the mother [Le Livre de poche, 2011]. This glorification of the natural chorus with the physiological exercise of midwifery by midwives and with the denunciation of obstetrical violence. The influence of social networks, which is constitutive of postmodernity, is considerable in all these areas.
The social norm concedes to hyper-modernity all forms of medically assisted procreation (PMA) to divide only around pregnancy for others. A simple blood test, non-invasive prenatal screening (NIPT), is sold, in every sense of the word, with the illusion of eliminating any genetic risk. This individual eugenics finds its collective repentance by avoiding carrying out an amniocentesis which would risk causing a miscarriage. An ultrasound, if possible in 3D, makes it possible to verify that the fetus is free from malformation, and at the same time offers future parents the first photograph of their future baby. By contrast, pregnancy follow-up is essentially an apprenticeship in parenting. The child will ask to be born when it is ready. Medical intervention, with the exception of an epidural, is considered a failure or abuse, as is formula feeding.
Women who do not recognize themselves in this prescription of motherhood are denigrated, considered by the social norm as distorted, even abusive. Their guilt has recently been aggravated by the psychiatrization of the complex theme of the first 1,000 days of life. Women are, however, entitled to demand certainty of the absence of chromosomal abnormality by carrying out an amniocentesis, to choose the date of their delivery and to decide whether it should be performed vaginally or by caesarean section. If such a particular choice is based on an understanding of the issues or on a profound intolerance of certain risks, however slight they may be, they should be listened to and heard.
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