Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This is a qualitative data collection. The study set out to address two research questions:

• how are pregnant substance-misusing women and their foetuses assessed and monitored?
• how do substance-misusing women describe their response to the treatment they are offered and to the supervision and surveillance of their pregnancies?

The results of the study were intended to advance sociological understanding of the medical regulation of women who are considered deviant consumers and of the choices they make in response to the identities and options that are available to them. The study was designed to investigate the competing identities of motherhood and substance misuse and to contribute to the understanding of agency and structural disadvantage. The findings of the study will be of use to clinicians and policy makers in developing and improving services for substance-misusing pregnant and post-partum women.

The criteria for participation in the study were problem opiate or cocaine using women who were either pregnant or who had given birth within the previous two years. In addition interviews were carried out with midwives, drug workers and sonographers and observations were made of antenatal appointments and scans. The focus of the study was the investigation of how substance-misusing pregnant and postpartum women manage 'spoiled identities'.

Further information may be found on the ESRC Pregnancy and Substance Misuse: and Ethnographic Study of Maternity Services webpage.


Main Topics:

The interviews explored substance-misusing women's experience of antenatal services and postnatal services; their drug treatment experience during their pregnancies and their postnatal experience.