Löwy, Ilana (Author)
In the 1960s, thanks to the development of prenatal diagnosis, medicine found a new object of study: the living fetus. At first, prenatal testing was proposed only to women at a high risk of giving birth to an impaired child. But in the following decades, such testing has become routine. In Imperfect Pregnancies, Ilana Löwy argues that the generalization of prenatal diagnosis has radically changed the experience of pregnancy for tens of millions of women worldwide. Although most women are reassured that their future child is developing well, others face a stressful period of waiting for results, uncertain prognosis, and difficult decisions. Löwy follows the rise of biomedical technologies that made prenatal diagnosis possible and investigates the institutional, sociocultural, economic, legal, and political consequences of their widespread diffusion. Because prenatal diagnosis is linked to the contentious issue of selective termination of pregnancy for a fetal anomaly, debates on this topic have largely centered on the rejection of human imperfection and the notion that we are now perched on a slippery slope that will lead to new eugenics. Imperfect Pregnancies tells a more complicated story, emphasizing that there is no single standardized way to scrutinize the fetus, but there are a great number of historically conditioned and situated approaches. This book will interest students, scholars, health professionals, administrators, and activists interested in issues surrounding new medical technologies, screening, risk management, pregnancy, disability, and the history and social politics of women’s bodies.
...MoreReview Eduardo Díaz Amado (2020) Review of "Imperfect Pregnancies: A History of Birth Defects and Prenatal Diagnosis". Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 183-198).
Review Andrew J. Hogan (2018) Review of "Tangled Diagnoses: Prenatal Testing, Women, and Risk". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 55-58).
Review Molly Ladd-Taylor (2018) Review of "Imperfect Pregnancies: A History of Birth Defects and Prenatal Diagnosis". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 563-564).
Review Jenna Healey (2018) Review of "Imperfect Pregnancies: A History of Birth Defects and Prenatal Diagnosis". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 887-888).
Book
Ilana Löwy;
(2018)
Tangled Diagnoses: Prenatal Testing, Women, and Risk
(/isis/citation/CBB433673993/)
Book
Nicolson, Malcolm;
Fleming, John E E;
(2013)
Imaging and Imagining the Fetus: The Development of Obstetric Ultrasound
(/isis/citation/CBB001421303/)
Article
Löwy, Ilana;
(2014)
How Genetics Came to the Unborn: 1960--2000
(/isis/citation/CBB001421074/)
Article
Al-Gailani, Salim;
(2014)
Making Birth Defects “Preventable”: Pre-Conceptional Vitamin Supplements and the Politics of Risk Reduction
(/isis/citation/CBB001421094/)
Article
Löwy, Ilana;
(2014)
Prenatal Diagnosis: The Irresistible Rise of the “Visible Fetus”
(/isis/citation/CBB001421095/)
Article
Agnes R Howard;
(2020)
Changing Expectation: Prenatal Care and the Creation of Healthy Pregnancy
(/isis/citation/CBB545211650/)
Article
Santesmases, María Jesús;
(2014)
The Human Autonomous Karyotype and the Origins of Prenatal Testing: Children, Pregnant Women and Early Down's Syndrome Cytogenetics, Madrid 1962--1975
(/isis/citation/CBB001421073/)
Article
Löwy, Ilana;
(2013)
Prenatal Diagnosis and the Transformation of the Epistemic Space of Human Heredity
(/isis/citation/CBB001211942/)
Article
Martin, Aryn;
Holloway, Kelly;
(2014)
“Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall”: Histories of the Placental Barrier
(/isis/citation/CBB001421096/)
Article
Vailly, Joëlle;
(2014)
Genetic Testing, Birth, and the Quest for Health
(/isis/citation/CBB001421197/)
Book
Roberts, Julie;
(2012)
The Visualised Foetus: A Cultural and Political Analysis of Ultrasound Imagery
(/isis/citation/CBB001421301/)
Book
Comacchio, Cynthia R.;
Golden, Janet Lynne;
Weisz, George;
(2008)
Healing the World's Children: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Health in the Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000850358/)
Book
Dawes, Laura;
(2014)
Childhood Obesity in America: Biography of an Epidemic
(/isis/citation/CBB001510031/)
Article
Nelson, Karin Zetterqvist;
Sandin, Bengt;
(2013)
Psychodynamics in Child Psychiatry in Sweden, 1945--85: From Political Vision to Treatment Ideology
(/isis/citation/CBB001320336/)
Article
Waldron, Tony;
(2014)
Crooked Timber: The Life of Calvin Wells (1908--1978)
(/isis/citation/CBB001421978/)
Article
Olszynko-Gryn, Jesse;
(2014)
The Demand for Pregnancy Testing: The Aschheim--Zondek Reaction, Diagnostic Versatility, and Laboratory Services in 1930s Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001421090/)
Thesis
Eder, Sandra;
(2011)
The Birth of Gender: Clinical Encounters with Hermaphroditic Children at Johns Hopkins (1940--1956)
(/isis/citation/CBB001567298/)
Article
Laura D. Hirshbein;
(2021)
Assessing the conduct of juveniles: Diagnosis and delinquency, 1900–2013
(/isis/citation/CBB605451186/)
Article
Buklijas, Tatjana;
(2014)
Food, Growth and Time: Elsie Widdowson's and Robert Mccance's Research into Prenatal and Early Postnatal Growth
(/isis/citation/CBB001421093/)
Book
Golden, Janet Lynne;
(2005)
Message in a Bottle: The Making of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
(/isis/citation/CBB000500214/)
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