Making men matter: exploring gender roles in prenatal blood screening

Abstract

Men's involvement in pregnancy has become an increasing area of interest in research on gender and reproduction. However, little attention has been given to men's roles when their partners are undergoing prenatal screening. Drawing on the findings of qualitative research with pregnant women and their male partners in a northern city in the UK, this paper aims to explore the increasing significance of men's roles in prenatal blood screening. Findings reveal that men occupy a range of important roles in screening both as supporters of their pregnant partners and as potential fathers. They also revealed however that men's participation is often inhibited by existing institutional and organisational factors including the attitudes of health professionals and workplace norms, both of which continue to be influenced by traditional gender role ideology. The paper concludes by arguing that pregnant women and their male partners therefore find themselves caught in a gender paradox whereby the desire for greater equality in pregnancy and screening has yet to be fully realised in practice.

Men's Knowledge About Maternal Serum Screening for Down Syndrome and their Attitude Towards Amniocentesis

“…However, if the men had undergone bad experiences with a previous pregnancy or if some complications had arisen in the current pregnancy, male partners sought more information and became more actively involved in decision-making. Although above mentioned studies (Dheensa et al 2015;Locock and Alexander 2006;Reed 2011) showed that men's involvement in prenatal screening was beneficial because it allowed them to support their partners and share the responsibility of decision-making with women, it is possible that men's attendance in screening appointments per se does not mean that they would necessarily seek out more information. As Dheensa et al (2015) found, male partners were prone to believing that the tests would confirm fetal health.…”

“…Male partners would probably play a significant role in support and decisionmaking regarding further diagnostic testing, especially when women are undecided. However, men who do not attend prenatal screening appointments are particularly unprepared for receiving and managing information about risk (Gottfredsdόttir et al 2009;Reed 2009Reed , 2011Sjögren 1992), and it has been presumed that their knowledge was based mostly on what their female partner told them (Locock and Alexander 2006). How this situation allowed for negotiation between couples regarding further diagnostic testing was not explored in any of the metasynthesis studies.…”

“…In brief, they provide their partners emotional support, advocating for them and gathering information to help with decisions. Reed (2011) also highlighted men's roles as information gatherers, as a support for their partner, and as joint decision-makers. In spite of this, Dheensa et al (2015) reported that most men in their study did not think carefully about whether to move forward with a test or not, did not feel obligated to seek details, and rarely asked midwives questions.…”

Shattered Schemata and Fragmented Identities

“…Inclusion criteria were for participants to be a minimum of 16 years old and to have been offered at least one screening test by the time of interview. As with previous research (e.g., Reed, 2011), we recruited first-time fathers and men who already had children. To maximize the sampling pool, men whose partners were up to 12 months postpartum were also included.…”

“…Also, many men felt marginalized in the antenatal unit, and as studies with women have suggested (e.g., Reid et al, 2009;Tsianakas, Atkin, Calnan, Dormandy, & Marteau, 2012), they did not feel they had made informed decisions, leading them to feel frustrated and confused. Two studies that were particularly important and relevant to the metasynthesis were by Reed (2009Reed ( , 2011 and Locock and Alexander (2006), both of which focused on men in the U.K. setting. Although contributing valuable and rich data to this field, fewer men were interviewed than women in both studies, and moreover, couples were often interviewed together, which may have caused men to feel limited in what they could reveal before their partners and vice versa.…”