Bio: Jill Wood is a Teaching Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with her Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health and Women’s Studies. Her research critiques the (bio)medicalization of women’s health (specifically menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, and the menopausal transition) and women’s sexualities (particularly sexual desire and sexual response models). In the area of reproductive justice, Jill Wood examines the coercive use of contraceptive methods like LARCs (long-acting reversible contraceptives) as a state sanctioned form of social control among vulnerable populations. Similarly, Wood’s work on birth justice discusses how risk medicine and fetal rights discourse contributes to the surveillance and disembodiment of pregnant individuals. Jill Wood is a Teaching Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with her Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health and Women’s Studies. Her research critiques the (bio)medicalization of women’s health (specifically menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, and the menopausal transition) and women’s sexualities (particularly sexual desire and sexual response models). In the area of reproductive justice, Jill Wood examines the coercive use of contraceptive methods like LARCs (long-acting reversible contraceptives) as a state sanctioned form of social control among vulnerable populations. Similarly, Wood’s work on birth justice discusses how risk medicine and fetal rights discourse contributes to the surveillance and disembodiment of pregnant individuals.
Abstract:
Birth plans in the US have been historically used as a way for pregnant individuals to communicate their birthing preferences to healthcare providers (e.g. Bell et al., 2022). Research over the past three decades has demonstrated that the use of birth plans improves not just birth outcomes (e.g. Ahmadpour et al., 2002), but also a birthing individual’s sense of autonomy and self-efficacy (e.g. Davis-Floyd, 2001; Simkin, 2007). Only recently have researchers considered the use of a birth plan as an educational tool, utilizing it as an assignment to teach university students about evidence-based perinatal care (Soliday & Smith, 2017). This project builds on previous research, illustrating how to utilize the birth plan as a feminist pedagogical tool to educate students about birth justice within the context of (bio)medical discourse that constructs pregnancy and birth as disease and disordered. The use of a birth plan as a writing assignment for undergraduate students in a course designed for future healthcare professionals illustrates how it can be a tool to educate providers on how to center the embodied knowledge of pregnant individuals to facilitate improved birth outcomes and to foster equity among pregnant and birthing people: birth(ing) justice.
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