MEDICALIZED MOTHERHOOD: BOURDIEU’S ELUCIDATION ON MATERNAL HEALTHCARE SERVICES IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Introduction: In maternal healthcare, each and every step is critical and important, as it is the matter of dealing with two bodies; mothers and newborns. Due to extensive medical intervention in healthcare, the contemporary practices of mothers and newborns healthcare in the hospitals are medicalized. This study was designed to comprehend the system of healthcare for providing safe and quality healthcare services to mothers and newborns as medicalized motherhood.

Material & Methods: Based on the identified gaps in the literature, theories and methodology, this study has adopted the qualitative design to investigate the medicalized motherhood practices at public hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan. In-depth interviews were conducted from 20 patients, six doctors and two staff members from the gynecology department.  Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of Practice was used as theoretical framework to describe disposition, position and positioning of the motherhood experience in the medicalized healthcare.

Results: Under the elucidation of Theory of practice, the findings of the study imitated healthcare as a social system, where various stakeholders involved to establish their relations with each other. It is concluded that the application of Bourdieu’s theory of practice strengthens an understanding of the structural-functional matters of the healthcare services delivered at hospitals as social institutions.

Conclusion: The interpretative phenomenological analysis of the study investigated some new aspects of the subject matter which have not been highlighted in any previous research such as process and procedure of care as well nurses-doctor hegemony of power.