ABSTRACT
Work is one of the predominant components of everybody's daily life. Employment is not only a means of achieving economic security or independence; it has psychological importance. At its best, work can provide opportunities for self-ful®lment, self-identity, creativity, social engagement and the success of shared goals, skills or activities. At its worst, the money helps. Statistics show that the majority of women are in employment and women of childbearing age are therefore likely to be working when they become pregnant for the ®rst time (Eurostat, 2004). Immediately, however, the conjunction of pregnancy and work (by which we mean paid employment) invokes a variety of potential discourses concerning the role of women in the public domain. Thus, the topic of work, and the research on women, work and pregnancy, refer directly to the debates we have alluded to in the discussions of the medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth and the normalisation of pregnancy through the predominance of the biomedical tradition. Furthermore, the issues of cognition and performance we discussed in the previous chapter can be regarded as integral to perceptions of women when they are pregnant in the workplace.
