Watching over baby: expectant parenthood and the duty to be well

In contemporary Western society, individuals are encouraged to adopt a “duty to be well ideology” by assuming personal responsibility for health through engagement in self-care practices. We explored the duty to be well within the contexts of pregnancy, first-time parenthood, and marriage. Analyses were informed by Foucault’s work on surveillance. In-depth interviews were conducted during the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy with 14 married couples expecting their first child. The sample was recruited from two U.S. university towns. Participants conceptualized the duty to be well as the expectant mother’s unyielding bodily obligation to her unborn child and the notion that she should engage in bodily routines to shape fetal development. Both wives and husbands participated in the duty to be well, which included three dimensions: the need to feed, the need to take physical care/stay out of harm’s way, and the need to thwart maternal anxiety. However, findings indicated that efforts to safeguard unborn children were sometimes a slippery slope, representing an uneven path and/or inciting ambivalence. Further, participants experienced surveillance associated with the duty to be well as both caring and controlling, depending upon the context of the surveillance and the perceived meaning of the monitoring.