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‘He was a Real Baby with Baby Things’

A Material Culture Analysis of Personhood, Parenthood and Pregnancy Loss

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, laynel{at}rpi.edu

This article explores the ways members of pregnancy loss support groups in the US use material culture to deal with the ‘realness problem’ of miscarriage, stillbirth, and early infant death. I examine goods purchased or made for the child-to-be during pregnancy; goods given from the child-to-be during the pregnancy; goods given to, or in the memory of, the ‘baby’ after its death; and things acquired to memorialize the child within the family. Through the buying, giving, and preserving of things, women and their social networks actively construct their babies-to-be and would-have-been babies as ‘real babies’ and themselves as ‘real mothers’, worthy of the social recognition this role entails.

Key Words: baby things • memorial goods • personhood • pregnancy loss

Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 5, No. 3, 321-345 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/135918350000500304


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