What do You Expect When You're Expecting? How Our Culture Influences Pregnancy

What do you expect when you're expecting? Well, it can be quite different depending on the cultural background that you're coming from. And this depends on anything from cravings for pancake batter to religious family ceremonies for your baby to be.

According to University of Cincinnati researcher Danielle Bessett, an assistant professor of sociology who presented her research on Aug. 10 at the 108^th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York, N.Y., she found that pregnant women are strongly influenced by common hearsay in their social circles and media by what she refers to as "pregnancy mythologies."

 "...Some drew heavily from ethnic-religious traditions, while others had little or no personal experience with pregnancy," says Bessett. "Some had complicated reproductive histories. Depending on these varied biographical and structural locations, women affirmed, grieved, critiqued and contested key aspects of pregnancy mythology," Bessett says, adding that all women interviewed confronted mythologies in pregnancy, via a press release.

Study information looked at interviews from 64 pregnant women in the greater New York metropolitan area from 2003-06. All of the participants were enrolled in prenatal care at the time of the interviews, and just over half ot them were expecting the birth of their first child. Twenty-three of the participants sought the care of public, hospital-based clinics while others looked for private practices. They represented a large range of socioeconomic and racial and ethnic backgrounds. However, patterns showed expectations in regard to pregnancy that were similar.

The study notes that just over half of the women interviewed were identified as white; 12 were identified as black, 14 as Hispanic or white and two as Hispanic or black. Two women also identified themselves as Asian and one woman identified herself as other or mixed race. House hold incomes were economically diverse and anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 or higher.

"Whether pleasurable, inconvenient or debilitating, pregnancy symptoms are not simply treated as pregnancy side-effects in our culture, but rather as a significant connection to fetus and fetal subjectivity," Bessett said via the release.

She adds that-"Many symptoms were frequently seen as tangible manifestations of the fetus's desires, needs or personal characteristics."

How was your pregnancy influenced by culture?