Birgitte Folmann

INTRODUCTION In Denmark, women with a future childbearing desire diagnosed with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 (CIN2) are recommended active surveillance instead of excisional treatment. However, we have limited and contradictory knowledge about how active surveillance of CIN2 may affect women emotionally. The aim of this study was to explore thoughts and emotional responses in women undergoing active surveillance of CIN2 and to explore how active surveillance may affect women's future childbearing desire. MATERIAL AND METHODS This qualitative study was conducted in the gynaecological outpatient clinic, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Gødstrup Hospital, Denmark. Women of childbearing age undergoing active surveillance with colposcopy, biopsy and smear every 6 months due to CIN2 were eligible for enrollment. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. A thematic analysis was performed using ...

This paper focuses on how the design, æsthethics and atmosphere of a new hospital birth environment affects the expe- riences of new fathers. Based on a phenome- nological study it shows how atmospheres are experienced in a new birthing room intended to stimulate the senses in a comforting and equanimity-evoking way, and especially how the fathers attuned themselves to the situ- ation of being present at the birth of their new-born infant. Studying fathers' transition to parenthood through the lens of atmosphere and interrogating the meaning of atmosphere in hospital rooms offers a more nuanced approach to our understanding of the relationship between people, space, time and event in future design of new hospital rooms.

In health care the appropriation of new technology to assist and improve the diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients can be challenging. Based on observations and interviews with nurses and midwives during the early implementation process of a new interactive and technologically improved patient room, this article examines how health care professionals make sense of their work in the new patient room as it becomes enacted in their everyday work practice. We find that the technologically improved room is met with some resistance by the nurses and midwives. We argue that by exploring appropriation of technology as a social process of sense-making (Weick 1995), it can be revealed how meanings assigned to the new room influences actions and interactions with it.

BACKGROUND Pregnancy and childbirth are important life experiences that entail major changes, both physically, psychologically, socially and existentially for women. Motherhood transition and the accompanying bodily changes involve expectations of body image that are simultaneously naturally and socially produced and culturally informed by public, private and professional discourses about motherhood transition. PROBLEM Much focus is levelled at the antepartum body in maternity services whereas the postpartum body seems left alone, although bodily dissatisfaction is of concern for many mothers, whose expectations of bodily appearance postpartum are sharp and explicit. AIM To explore Danish first-time mothers' experiences of their body postpartum, focusing on body image. METHODS Eleven first-time mothers participated in semi-structured interviews related to the postpartum body image. Data was analysed thematically. FINDINGS Four themes: (1) Reverting the body: on bouncing back and losing weight; (2) Picturing me: on standards of beauty and ideal bodies; (3) Redefining earlier self-images: on meta-reproachment of the body; (4) Idealisation of not looking like a mother: on societal pressure to think positively. Findings were discussed through the theoretical concepts by Scheper-Hughes and Lock: the body as both individual, social and political. CONCLUSION Despite nuanced reflections over the body as subject and object, women identified beauty as a personal trait dependent on visual appearance. Bodily beauty was identified as something individual, yet standardised. Women felt strengthened through motherhood but looking like a mother was not considered worth pursuing. To allow for women's contradictory perspectives, caregivers are advised to communicate reflexively about the postpartum body.

Discussions of health-related behaviors and lifestyle often become theoretical and morally laden owing to their individualistic view on risk factors and life choices. This article uses the analytical concepts of contagion and configuration to explore the spread of aspirations for the good life among young men in Northern Uganda. The potential social contagion of aspirations is unfolded to provide a deeper understanding of social processes not only as dynamics between people but also as processes between people and their surroundings in a society which is subject to rapid change. This understanding will provide a sense of the meaning invested in having a ‘life style’ and the significance of choice. Inspired theoretically by the Weberian concept of life style, it is found that young people in Northern Uganda, although they may be limited in terms of their life chances, live their lives as well as possible by taking advantage of the little space for choice that the reality of their res...