‘Does My Bump Look Big in This?’ the Meaning of Bodily Changes for First-time Mothers-to-be

Research on the impact of bodily changes during the transition to motherhood is contradictory. The aim of the study reported here was to provide more useful insights by employing an inductive qualitative approach. Interviews with six women in the latter stages of pregnancy were analysed drawing upon aspects of interpretative phenomenological analysis and Foucauldian discourse analysis. These analyses suggest generally negative consequence, and discursive constructions that have a greater potential to be limiting than empowering. The impact of gender ideologies on women’s ways of being while pregnant is highlighted, as is the importance of developing alternative representations of the female, and the pregnant body, which do not pathologize women.