Chapter 23: Having Recurrent Gestational Losses: Persistence in Living¹

The roles women play and the female identity has been historically built around motherhood (Gillespie, 2003). From the eighteenth century on, the mother’s social image, her role, and importance was strengthened by the influence of philosophical, medical, and political discourses. The valorization of maternal love was praised, as if it were a natural and social value, which favored society and the species (Badinter, 1985). Thus, from this historical moment on, maternal love emerges as something incontestable, as if it had always existed all over the world, perpetuated throughout the following centuries (Badinter, 1985). According to Badinter (1985), if in the eighteenth century there was the confirmation and accentuation of the mother’s responsibility, then by the twentieth century the concept of responsibility was transformed into maternal guilt. Motherhood became part of the female nature. However, by the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of twenty-first century many further significant changes in women’s reproductive experiences can be observed.