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“Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities

The fields of epigenetics and neuroscience have come to occupy a significant place in individual and public life in biomedicalized societies. Social scientists have argued that the primacy and popularization of the “neuro” has begun to shape how patients and other lay people experience themselves an...

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Autores principales: Norrmén-Smith, Ingrid Olivia, Gómez-Carrillo, Ana, Choudhury, Suparna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8076589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33928142
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.653160
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author Norrmén-Smith, Ingrid Olivia
Gómez-Carrillo, Ana
Choudhury, Suparna
author_facet Norrmén-Smith, Ingrid Olivia
Gómez-Carrillo, Ana
Choudhury, Suparna
author_sort Norrmén-Smith, Ingrid Olivia
collection PubMed
description The fields of epigenetics and neuroscience have come to occupy a significant place in individual and public life in biomedicalized societies. Social scientists have argued that the primacy and popularization of the “neuro” has begun to shape how patients and other lay people experience themselves and their lifeworlds in increasingly neurological and genetic terms. Pregnant women and new mothers have become an important new target for cutting edge neuroscientific and epigenetic research, with the Internet constituting a highly active space for engagement with knowledge translations. In this paper, we analyze the reception by women in North America of translations of nascent epigenetic and neuroscientific research. We conducted three focus groups with pregnant women and new mothers. The study was informed by a prior scoping investigation of online content. Our focus group findings record how engagement with translations of epigenetic and neuroscientific research impact women's perinatal experience, wellbeing, and self-construal. Three themes emerged in our analysis: (1) A kind of brain; (2) The looping effects of biomedical narratives; (3) Imprints of past experience and the management of the future. This data reveals how mothers engage with the neurobiological style-of-thought increasingly characteristic of public health and popular science messaging around pregnancy and motherhood. Through the molecularization of pregnancy and child development, a typical passage of life becomes saturated with “susceptibility,” “risk,” and the imperative to preemptively make “healthy' choices.” This, in turn, redefines and shapes the experience of what it is to be a “good,” “healthy,” or “responsible” mother/to-be.
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spelling pubmed-80765892021-04-28 “Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities Norrmén-Smith, Ingrid Olivia Gómez-Carrillo, Ana Choudhury, Suparna Front Sociol Sociology The fields of epigenetics and neuroscience have come to occupy a significant place in individual and public life in biomedicalized societies. Social scientists have argued that the primacy and popularization of the “neuro” has begun to shape how patients and other lay people experience themselves and their lifeworlds in increasingly neurological and genetic terms. Pregnant women and new mothers have become an important new target for cutting edge neuroscientific and epigenetic research, with the Internet constituting a highly active space for engagement with knowledge translations. In this paper, we analyze the reception by women in North America of translations of nascent epigenetic and neuroscientific research. We conducted three focus groups with pregnant women and new mothers. The study was informed by a prior scoping investigation of online content. Our focus group findings record how engagement with translations of epigenetic and neuroscientific research impact women's perinatal experience, wellbeing, and self-construal. Three themes emerged in our analysis: (1) A kind of brain; (2) The looping effects of biomedical narratives; (3) Imprints of past experience and the management of the future. This data reveals how mothers engage with the neurobiological style-of-thought increasingly characteristic of public health and popular science messaging around pregnancy and motherhood. Through the molecularization of pregnancy and child development, a typical passage of life becomes saturated with “susceptibility,” “risk,” and the imperative to preemptively make “healthy' choices.” This, in turn, redefines and shapes the experience of what it is to be a “good,” “healthy,” or “responsible” mother/to-be. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8076589/ /pubmed/33928142 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.653160 Text en Copyright © 2021 Norrmén-Smith, Gómez-Carrillo and Choudhury. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Norrmén-Smith, Ingrid Olivia
Gómez-Carrillo, Ana
Choudhury, Suparna
“Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities
title “Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities
title_full “Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities
title_fullStr “Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities
title_full_unstemmed “Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities
title_short “Mombrain and Sticky DNA”: The Impacts of Neurobiological and Epigenetic Framings of Motherhood on Women's Subjectivities
title_sort “mombrain and sticky dna”: the impacts of neurobiological and epigenetic framings of motherhood on women's subjectivities
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8076589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33928142
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.653160
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