Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice?
Medical sociologists and anthropologists have studied the social significance of obstetric ultrasound for families but little is known about how women and families make use of commercially available ultrasound scans. This article draws on interviews with women who booked a scan with a commercial com...
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| Format: | Article |
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Sage
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51188/ |
| _version_ | 1848798437604065280 |
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| author | Roberts, Julie Griffiths, Frances Verran, Alice |
| author_facet | Roberts, Julie Griffiths, Frances Verran, Alice |
| author_sort | Roberts, Julie |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Medical sociologists and anthropologists have studied the social significance of obstetric ultrasound for families but little is known about how women and families make use of commercially available ultrasound scans. This article draws on interviews with women who booked a scan with a commercial company in the UK. For some women, commercial ultrasound can be understood as a family practice. We investigate this theme by examining who accompanies women to commercial scan appointments, how scan images are shared and how sonograms are used as prompts to resemblance talk. We argue that commercial scans are more than an additional opportunity to acquire ‘baby’s first picture’ and offer a flexible resource to do family, creating and affirming family relationships and rehearsing roles as parents, siblings and grandparents. Our findings confirm the importance of imagination in doing family and raise questions about the role of technology and commercial interests in shaping family practices. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:19:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-51188 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:19:46Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Sage |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-511882020-05-04T18:48:09Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51188/ Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? Roberts, Julie Griffiths, Frances Verran, Alice Medical sociologists and anthropologists have studied the social significance of obstetric ultrasound for families but little is known about how women and families make use of commercially available ultrasound scans. This article draws on interviews with women who booked a scan with a commercial company in the UK. For some women, commercial ultrasound can be understood as a family practice. We investigate this theme by examining who accompanies women to commercial scan appointments, how scan images are shared and how sonograms are used as prompts to resemblance talk. We argue that commercial scans are more than an additional opportunity to acquire ‘baby’s first picture’ and offer a flexible resource to do family, creating and affirming family relationships and rehearsing roles as parents, siblings and grandparents. Our findings confirm the importance of imagination in doing family and raise questions about the role of technology and commercial interests in shaping family practices. Sage 2017-06-01 Article PeerReviewed Roberts, Julie, Griffiths, Frances and Verran, Alice (2017) Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? Sociology, 51 (3). pp. 527-542. ISSN 1469-8684 family family display family practices pregnancy ultrasound http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038515591945 doi:10.1177/0038038515591945 doi:10.1177/0038038515591945 |
| spellingShingle | family family display family practices pregnancy ultrasound Roberts, Julie Griffiths, Frances Verran, Alice Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| title | Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| title_full | Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| title_fullStr | Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| title_short | Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| title_sort | seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice? |
| topic | family family display family practices pregnancy ultrasound |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51188/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51188/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51188/ |