The influence of the ‘spaces of everyday life’ on pregnancy health

Abstract

Given the recent focus of medical geography on the social influences of health and illness, this paper draws upon a socio-theoretical framework to show the link between pregnancy health and the spaces of everyday life. The health of pregnant women is becoming increasingly important given that 85 percent of women work during their pregnancy. Employment during pregnancy is consistently linked with good health for infants; however, large discrepancies exist on the effects for employed mothers. This study estimates the health effect of women's employment during pregnancy with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Findings show that women's involvement in paid employment has a beneficial impact for infants compared to women not involved in paid labour. Women who work one job or more per week experience more health problems than women who work less than one job per week. Finally, women who work in male-dominated and gender-neutral workspaces experience significantly more prenatal problems than women in female-dominated workspaces. In conclusion, there is evidence to support that differences in employment status, number of workplaces involved in and gendered workspaces influence the experience of health and illness that are negotiated in the spaces of everyday life.

The Personal Work of a First Pregnancy: Transforming Identities, Relationships, and Women's Work

“…In a study of the experiences of pregnant women with a pre-existing illness or a major health problem occurring during pregnancy, Thomas (2003) applied the sociological concept of careers. We agree with others' recommendations for the need for broader explorations of the gendered nature of women's workspaces during pregnancy (Lindsay, 2004) and attention to variations in pregnancy experiences by class (Reich, 2003). Other areas for future research include the intersections of pregnancy work and culture, ethnicity, family structure and marital status, social networks, economic resources, and employment characteristics and environments.…”

Long-term sickness absence during pregnancy and the gender balance of workplaces

“…Kanter's theory on tokenism has been especially influential in describing how minority women are subject to stereotyping, increased performance pressure and perceived as deviant contrast [23]. lindsay [24] suggests that routines, norms and work organization formed to suit the male worker might be extra hard for a woman to adapt to when she is pregnant, and that it may be more difficult for her to receive social support in a male-dominated workplace. Empirical studies show that pregnancy-related absence is positively associated with heavy physical work, long working days, low job control, little support and obtained job adjustment [4,[25][26][27].…”

Parenting gone wired: empowerment of new mothers on the internet?

“…It is imperative to speculate on this future role. While this role will depend on the specific social and spatial location of the parents under consideration, some health care professionals have heralded the potential of the internet for providing information and support for new mothers (Lamp and Howard 1999;Sarkadi and Bremberg 2005), especially significant given that over 85 percent of women work during pregnancy (Lindsay 2004). The internet could, for example, be used to forge 'cyber-agency' through forums for new mothers and midwives/health visitors to communicate in more collaborative ways.…”