IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v64y2007i1p112-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Irreconcilable differences: Health professionals' constructions of adolescence and motherhood

Author

Listed:
  • Breheny, Mary
  • Stephens, Christine

Abstract

Adolescent motherhood has been associated with negative health outcomes for both adolescent mothers and their children in many studies. Although the link between early motherhood and disadvantage has more recently been questioned, professional understandings continue to focus on hardship and social exclusion. Social constructionism provides a critical approach to the professional constructions of adolescent motherhood. Using discourse analysis, transcripts of individual interviews with 17 New Zealand health professionals working in a variety of settings were analysed to examine the discourses used to construct adolescent motherhood. During the interviews, doctors, midwives, and nurses drew upon 'Developmental' and 'Motherhood' discourses to position adolescent mothers as problematic. The 'Developmental' discourse positions young mothers as 'adolescents' who are naive, distracted, and self-centred, and hence unable to mother correctly. The health professionals also employed a 'Motherhood' discourse that attributes certain behaviours to 'good' mothers. These discourses were drawn upon to illustrate how the characteristics of an 'adolescent' cannot be reconciled with the attributes of a 'good' mother. These constructions have implications for health care provision for adolescent mothers in New Zealand.

Suggested Citation

  • Breheny, Mary & Stephens, Christine, 2007. "Irreconcilable differences: Health professionals' constructions of adolescence and motherhood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 112-124, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:1:p:112-124
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(06)00437-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arline Geronimus & Sanders Korenman, 1993. "The socioeconomic costs of teenage childbearing: Evidence and interpretation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(2), pages 281-290, May.
    2. Abel, Sally & Park, Julie & Tipene-Leach, David & Finau, Sitaleki & Lennan, Michele, 2001. "Infant care practices in New Zealand: a cross-cultural qualitative study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(9), pages 1135-1148, November.
    3. Deal, L.W. & Holt, V.L., 1998. "Young maternal age and depressive symptoms: Results from the 1988 National Maternal and Infant Health Survey," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 88(2), pages 266-270.
    4. Geronimus, Arline T., 2003. "Damned if you do: culture, identity, privilege, and teenage childbearing in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 881-893, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Giulia Olivari & Gaia Cuccì & Emanuela Confalonieri, 2016. "“Beyond Personal Beliefsâ€," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(4), pages 21582440166, October.
    2. Mitchell, Penelope Fay, 2009. "A discourse analysis on how service providers in non-medical primary health and social care services understand their roles in mental health care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1213-1220, April.
    3. Stevens, Lindsay M., 2015. "Planning parenthood: Health care providers' perspectives on pregnancy intention, readiness, and family planning," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 44-52.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heiland, Frank & Korenman, Sanders & Smith, Rachel A., 2019. "Estimating the educational consequences of teenage childbearing: Identification, heterogeneous effects and the value of biological relationship information," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 15-28.
    2. Lee, Chioun & Ryff, Carol D., 2016. "Early parenthood as a link between childhood disadvantage and adult heart problems: A gender-based approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 58-66.
    3. R. Haveman & B. Wolfe & K. Wilson & E. Peterson, "undated". "Do Teens Make Rational Choices? The Case of Teen Nonmarital Childbearing," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1137-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    4. Saul D. Hoffman, 2015. "Teen Childbearing and Economics: A Short History of a 25-Year Research Love Affair," Societies, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-18, September.
    5. Wolfe, Barbara & Wilson, Kathryn & Haveman, Robert, 2001. "The role of economic incentives in teenage nonmarital childbearing choices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 473-511, September.
    6. Levine, David I. & Painter, Gary, 2000. "The Costs of Teenage Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing: Analysis with a Within-School Propensity Score," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt2fr4259q, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    7. Stevens, Lindsay M., 2015. "Planning parenthood: Health care providers' perspectives on pregnancy intention, readiness, and family planning," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 44-52.
    8. H. J. Holzer & R. J. LaLonde, "undated". "Job Change and Job Stability among Less-Skilled Young Workers," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1191-99, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    9. Pinka Chatterji & Sara Markowitz, 2005. "Does the Length of Maternity Leave Affect Maternal Health?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(1), pages 16-41, July.
    10. Dylan Kneale & Ruth Lupton, 2010. "Are there neighbourhood effects on teenage parenthood in the UK, and does it matter for policy? A review of theory and evidence," CASE Papers case141, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    11. Tonei, Valentina, 2019. "Mother’s mental health after childbirth: Does the delivery method matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 182-196.
    12. Nandagiri, Rishita, 2021. "What’s so troubling about ‘voluntary’ family planning anyway? A feminist perspective," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112535, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Levine, D.I. & Painter, G., 2000. "The Costs of Teenage Out-of-Weblock Childbearing: Analysis with a Within-School Propensity Score Matching Estimator," Papers 74, California Berkeley - Institute of Industrial Relations.
    14. Elena Ierardi & Alessandro Albizzati & Margherita Moioli & Cristina Riva Crugnola, 2022. "Psychopathological and Psychosocial Risk Profile, Styles of Interaction and Mentalization of Adolescent and Young Mother–Infant Dyads," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-16, April.
    15. Rachel M. Shattuck, 2019. "Preferences Against Nonmarital Fertility Predict Steps to Prevent Nonmarital Pregnancy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(4), pages 565-591, August.
    16. Phillip B. Levine, 2001. "The Sexual Activity and Birth-Control Use of American Teenagers," NBER Chapters, in: Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis, pages 167-218, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Barclay, Kieron & Keenan, Katherine & Grundy, Emily & Kolk, Martin & Myrskylä, Mikko, 2016. "Reproductive history and post-reproductive mortality: A sibling comparison analysis using Swedish register data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 82-92.
    18. Christina J. Diaz & Jeremy E. Fiel, 2016. "The Effect(s) of Teen Pregnancy: Reconciling Theory, Methods, and Findings," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(1), pages 85-116, February.
    19. Kravdal, Øystein & Rindfuss, Ronald R., 2007. "Changing relationships between education and fertility – a study of women and men born 1940-64," Memorandum 11/2007, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    20. Gustafsson, Per E. & Hammarström, Anne, 2012. "Socioeconomic disadvantage in adolescent women and metabolic syndrome in mid-adulthood: An examination of pathways of embodiment in the Northern Swedish Cohort," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(10), pages 1630-1638.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:64:y:2007:i:1:p:112-124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.