Women's embodied experiences with contraception and its medicalization

Abstract

Contraception is vital in maintaining reproductive health, and nearly all women will use it in their lifetime. Accordingly, contraception has been increasingly featured in public health initiatives seeking to improve women’s reproductive wellbeing. Emerging research has demonstrated how women’s contraceptive experiences influence various aspects around its use. These studies often cite dimensions involving the body, such as experiences and understandings of side effects, as highly salient. Moreover, research finds that the structure of medicine and processes of medicalization often shape how women learn about, access, and use contraception. Hence, both embodiment and medicalization of contraception are influential in women’s contraceptive experiences, but these dimensions are generally not explored together in current literature. Thus, I ask: How do women’s embodied experiences with contraception interrelate with its medicalization? I approach this question through three empirical chapters, spanning the topics of: (1) women’s embodied knowledge of contraception, (2) women’s understandings of contraception as (un)natural, and (3) how contraceptive disparities arise in and through provider-patient interactions. Each separate study is grounded in distinct theoretical frames and literature reviews. Altogether, this dissertation explores how women’s embodied experiences link with medicalization to help determine their contraceptive choices and reproductive health outcomes. This dissertation also illuminates processes that inform disparities around contraceptive access, initiation, maintenance, and discontinuance. In turn, this work will be relevant and useful in informing healthcare policies and public health initiatives that seek to enhance reproductive health and agency for all.