A Security Blanket or a False Idol?: Entanglements of Technology and Expertise in American Childbirth

• In Event: 470 - Regular Session. Sociology of Reproduction: Reproductive Technologies

Abstract

Continuous electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) is the most commonly used obstetrical intervention in the United States. Despite the widespread use of these devices, there is little to no evidence that they improve maternal or fetal health outcomes. Instead, the monitors may lead to an increase in unnecessary and potentially dangerous interventions. This paper, based on interviews with ninety-four birth providers in five cities across the United States, seeks to understand how both physicians and midwives interact with these devices. More generally, how do relationships between experts and technology develop and stabilize? Under which circumstances do technologies reinforce expertise or threaten to replace experts? This paper also challenges a common thread in the sociology of birth that explains current power structures by focusing on the professional struggles of midwives and obstetricians. While these studies of maternity care are helpful, they are often marked by an overreliance on professional and gender rivalries as explanatory variables. I argue that analytical approaches focused on professional jurisdiction should be replaced by studying expertise networks, a broader concept encompassing actors, devices, and institutional and spatial arrangements (Eyal 2013). I show the utility of this approach by demonstrating how devices like electronic fetal monitors are key players in understanding contemporary power structures in American birth.

Author

• Kellie Owens, Northwestern University