Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
have this 1 to 238 that is circulating in my head, and I have nothing to
relate to. If I had had it with the two others, I would have known that I
had two healthy children even with the risk fi gure.
Understanding the risk score as high or low is obviously diffi cult, just
refl ecting on the fi gure per se. The women also give numerous examples of
how they saw this diffi culty as related to the situation they found themselves
in. Some described that they were in 'a shock', or that they became very
sad and cried, and therefore did not catch so much of the information.
Others said that they could suddenly feel that the risk, which was not so
high, suddenly was a very big risk after all, relating this 'change' to their
emotional state.
When the women account for their experiences of the high risk
information, one characteristic pattern is that they also refl ect on the ways
they 'think'; how diffi cult it is to integrate or absorb the information, or
think 'rationally'; how they try to think in a certain way, for example to
think 'positively' or to think about the baby as healthy. In the following
example, the woman talks about her diffi culties in understanding the high
risk information.
METTE:
(29, risk score 1:71) The midwife didn't say very much. She told
me about the statistics and about the routines they follow, but she didn't
say very much more and that was good because I wasn't able to absorb
anything more. I was too much in a shock, I wouldn't have been able to
understand any more information right then (…) I don't think statistics
is diffi cult, but when it comes to yourself, it is very diffi cult to put it into
a rational context, I think.
Mette argues that it was diffi cult for her to 'absorb' the information, and
she relates this to herself in the particular situation, 'right then' referring
to when the midwife gave her the high risk information. Interestingly, she
does not fi nd the statistics, the fi gure, diffi cult. The diffi culties have to do
with herself and the state she is in. These types of refl ections on their own,
diffi culties to think in a clear way
or to
think
rationally
, as they say, are
typical of the way the women talk about their experiences. Understanding
the risk score as high or low is thus not straightforward, and the women
elaborately describe their own efforts to understand what it means and the
various ways they try to contextualize the risk score.
Belonging to a high risk group
Another way of refl ecting on the risk score is to focus on the fact that when
the risk is one to something,
somebody has to be the one
. Even if it is a small
risk, somebody has to be the one that is not normal:
