Looking Within: A Sociocultural Examination of Fetoscopy

In Looking Within, Deborah Blizzard examines the high-risk in uterosurgery known as fetoscopy, considering it as both cutting-edge medical technologyand as a sociocultural construction of patients, their social networks, and medicalproviders. She looks at the way individual experiences shape these procedures andhow fetoscopy affects individuals (both patients and providers

In Looking Within, Deborah Blizzard examines the high-risk in uterosurgery known as fetoscopy, considering it as both cutting-edge medical technologyand as a sociocultural construction of patients, their social networks, and medicalproviders. She looks at the way individual experiences shape these procedures andhow fetoscopy affects individuals (both patients and providers) on a personal, emotional level. Based on an eleven-month ethnographic study of the fetoscopypractice at a community-based hospital and further interviews with former patients, Looking Within offers a vivid picture of the sometimes conflicted, often desperate, and always emotional lives of those undergoing fetoscopy, and challenges currentassumptions about normal and appropriate pregnancy experiences. To convey thecomplex reality of fetoscopy, Blizzard draws from the experiences of the realpatients she interviewed for the book to present the fictional case of Melinda andJoe, taking them through the entire process, from diagnosis to decision to outcome.She then discusses the emergence of fetoscopy as an accepted form of high-riskobstetrical care, how fetoscopy programs are established at hospitals, and whyotherwise healthy women consent to surgery. Blizzard examines the use of fetoscopyin single-fetus and in twin pregnancies, looking at how religion, culture, society, and medical science inform any understanding of who or what is in utero (a baby? atumor? a mass?). She also discusses definitions of loss and success, and thenarratives patients and their social networks construct to make sense of them.Looking Within will help physicians and nurses improve the development and deliveryof fetoscopy procedures, help patients understand this new technology, and helpscholars evaluate fetoscopy's bioethical, social, and cultural implications.DeborahBlizzard is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at RochesterInstitute of Technology.