Tecnología médica en el embarazo. Usos y representaciones

Pregnancy is socially considered a high risk event, which means that prgnant women must undertake a number of procedures aimed at its early detection. This paper looks into two of those: ultrasound scan and amniocentesis aiming at describing their uses and the representations which they evoke. The assessment is based on the stories of twelve pregnant women and two doctors. We find that with those procedures medical power is enhanced while women’s dependency on that same power and their istrust on their own reproductive capacity increases, and there is a transmition of the ideology of the woman-mother role. Moreover, they involve social ideologies and interests of which women are made responsible.