{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,13]],"date-time":"2026-09-13T23:31:57Z","timestamp":1789342317990,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":59,"publisher":"BMJ","issue":"1","content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med Humanities"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,24]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,3]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper is a comparative reading of variations in the medicalisation of infertility caused by sociocultural aspects, in two illness narratives by patients: Elizabeth Katkin\u2019s <jats:italic>Conceivability<\/jats:italic> (2018), a story of navigating a fertility industry with polycystic ovarian syndrome and antiphospholipid syndrome in America and Rohini Rajagopal\u2019s <jats:italic>What\u2019s a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina<\/jats:italic> (2021), a discussion from India of a growing awareness of medicalisation in treatment of unexplained infertility. For this purpose, it first charts scholarship on illness narratives and medicalisation, noting a historical association. Following this, it shows how infertility, a physiological symptom of reproductive incapacity or failure to show clinical pregnancy, is generally medicalised. This paper reads the texts as showing hitherto unaddressed sociocultural aspects of infertility\u2019s medicalisation. At the same time, drawing from existing sociological and anthropological scholarship, it shows how a reading of sociocultural aspects in medicalised infertility nuances understanding of it\u2019s medicalisation. This comparative reading attends to sociocultural values and norms within the texts, including pronatalism, fetal personhood, kinship organisation, purity\/pollution, individual reliance, sacred duty and so forth. It draws from scholarship on embodiment, rhetorical strategies and the language of medicine. It also shows how a patient\u2019s non-medicalised, affective history of \u2018deep\u2019 sickness caused by the biographical disruption of infertility is not that of a \u2018poor historian\u2019. In laying out the particularisation of such sociocultural values and norms across America and India, medicalisation\u2019s migration from its origins to the margins reveals subjectivised, stratified reproduction in infertility illness narratives. This paper is part of a turn in scholarship away from understanding the medicalisation of infertility as naturalised and decontextualised.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2024-012977","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,17]],"date-time":"2024-08-17T13:20:39Z","timestamp":1723900839000},"page":"76-85","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Sociocultural aspects of the medicalisation of infertility: a comparative reading of two illness narratives"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"51","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5675-9719","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Annie","family":"James","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Manjusha G","family":"Warrier","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ann Treessa","family":"Benny","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of English and Cultural Studies, Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1440-1800.2007.00362.x"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.3389\/fsoc.2020.00043","article-title":"\u201cProposition of Belief and Practice Theory for Men Undergoing Infertility Treatment: A Hospital Based Study in Mumbai, India.\u201d","volume":"5","author":"Baranwal","year":"2020","journal-title":"Frontiers in Sociology"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"456","DOI":"10.1111\/1467-9566.ep10493093","article-title":"\u201cEager for Medicalisation: The Social Production of Infertility as a Disease.\u201d","volume":"14","author":"Becker","year":"1992","journal-title":"Sociology of Health & Illness"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"507","DOI":"10.1016\/0277-9536(94)90093-0","article-title":"\u201c\u2018Born to Be a Mother\u2019: The Cultural Construction of Risk in Infertility Treatment in the U.S.\u201d","volume":"39","author":"Becker","year":"1994","journal-title":"Social Science & Medicine"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"39","DOI":"10.1016\/j.socscimed.2016.03.005","article-title":"\u201cThe Margins of Medicalization: Diversity and Context through the Case of Infertility.\u201d","volume":"156","author":"Bell","year":"2016","journal-title":"Social Science & Medicine"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"479","DOI":"10.1007\/s11133-019-09421-3","article-title":"\u201c\u2018Trying to Have Your Own First; It\u2019s What You Do\u2019: The Relationship Between Adoption and Medicalized Infertility.\u201d","volume":"42","author":"Bell","year":"2019","journal-title":"Qualitative Sociology"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bharadwaj A . 2016. Conceptions: Infertility and Procreative Technologies in India. Berghahn Books. https:\/\/www.berghahnbooks.com\/title\/bharadwajconceptions.","DOI":"10.2307\/j.ctvr6968c"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bledsoe C. H . 2015. \u201cFertility and Culture: Anthropological Insights.\u201d In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed. Elsevier Inc.","DOI":"10.1016\/B978-0-08-097086-8.31071-6"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11","DOI":"10.1007\/s10912-019-09555-z","article-title":"\u201cIn\/Fertile Monsters: The Emancipatory Significance of Representations of Women on Infertility Reality TV.\u201d","volume":"43","author":"Boer","year":"2022","journal-title":"The Journal of Medical Humanities"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"263","DOI":"10.1111\/1467-9566.00252","article-title":"\u201cIllness Narratives: Fact or Fiction?\u201d","volume":"23","author":"Bury","year":"2001","journal-title":"Sociology of Health & Illness"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"95","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1755-618X.2006.tb00856.x","article-title":"\u201cThe Continuity and Discontinuity of the Embodied Self in Infertility*.\u201d","volume":"43","author":"Clarke","year":"2006","journal-title":"Canadian Review of Sociology\/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.so.18.080192.001233"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.13","unstructured":"Conrad P . 2007. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Conrad P . 2013. \u201cMedicalization: Changing Contours, Characteristics, and Contexts.\u201d In Medical Sociology on the Move: New Directions in Theory. Dordrecht: Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-94-007-6193-3_10"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Couser T. G . 2011. \u201cAutopathography: Women, Illness, and Lifewriting.\u201d In On the Literary Non Fiction of Nancy Mairs: A Critical Anthology. Critical Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.","DOI":"10.1057\/9780230337688_9"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"88","DOI":"10.1353\/lm.2020.0004","article-title":"\u201c\u2018Soldiering On\u2019: Social Media Representations of Infertility and Assisted Reproduction as Patient Narratives.\u201d","volume":"38","author":"Craig","year":"2020","journal-title":"Literature and Medicine"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"365","DOI":"10.2190\/3H2H-3XJN-3KAY-G9NY","article-title":"\u201cHealthism and the Medicalization of Everyday Life.\u201d","volume":"10","author":"Crawford","year":"1980","journal-title":"International Journal of Health Services:Planning, Administration, Evaluation"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.18","unstructured":"Culley L. , Hudson N. , and Floor van R. . 2013. Marginalized Reproduction: Ethnicity, Infertility and Reproductive Technologies. Routledge."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Duggan A . 2019. \u201cReconsidering Embodiment and Language for Illness.\u201d In Health and Illness in Close Relationships, 193\u2013219. Advances in Personal Relationships. Cambridge University Press.","DOI":"10.1017\/9781108325578.006"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.20","unstructured":"Engel J. D. , Zarconi J. , Pethtel L. L. , and Missimi S. A. . 2008. Narrative in Health Care: Healing Patients, Practitioners, Profession, and Community. 1st ed. Routledge."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/h0089849"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1186\/s12978-020-01048-w","article-title":"\u201cDropout of Infertility Treatments and Related Factors among Infertile Couples.\u201d","volume":"17","author":"Ghorbani","year":"2020","journal-title":"Reproductive Health"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"347","DOI":"10.1080\/00380253.2019.1625731","article-title":"\u201cDegrees of Medicalization: The Case of Infertility Health-Seeking.\u201d","volume":"61","author":"Greil","year":"2020","journal-title":"The Sociological Quarterly"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1548-1387.2010.01094.x"},{"issue":"8","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"736","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1751-9020.2011.00397.x","article-title":"\u201cThe Social Construction of Infertility.\u201d","volume":"5","author":"Greil","year":"2011","journal-title":"Sociology Compass"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.5463\/ejlw.2.42","article-title":"\u201cOn Being Ill (in Britain and the US): Illness Narratives of the Self.\u201d","volume":"2","author":"Gygax","year":"2013","journal-title":"European Journal of Life Writing"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.27","unstructured":"Hawkins A. H . 1999. Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathology. 2nd ed. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press."},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"48","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-9566.1997.tb00015.x","article-title":"\u201cIllness and Narrative.\u201d","volume":"19","author":"Hyd\u00e9n","year":"1997","journal-title":"Sociology of Health & Illness"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Inhorn M. C. , and Frank van B. . 2002. Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies. Univ of California Press.","DOI":"10.1525\/9780520927810"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"329","DOI":"10.1080\/00335630.2015.1025098","article-title":"\u201cImproving Upon Nature: The Rhetorical Ecology of Chemical Language, Reproductive Endocrinology, and the Medicalization of Infertility.\u201d","volume":"101","author":"Jensen","year":"2015","journal-title":"Quarterly Journal of Speech"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.31","unstructured":"Jensen R. E . 2016. \u201cInfertility: Tracing the History of a Transformative Term\u201d In RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric, edited by Robin E. J . Penn State University Press."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.32","unstructured":"Jurecic A . 2012. \u201cIllness as Narrative.\u201d In PIttsburgh serIes In ComPosItIon, lIteraCy, and Culture. University of Pittsburgh Press."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.33","unstructured":"Katkin E . 2018. Conceivability: What I Learned Exploring the Frontiers of Fertility. Simon & Schuster."},{"issue":"3","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"282","DOI":"10.1080\/01459740.2019.1656621","article-title":"\u201cDoctors of Plural Medicine, Knowledge Transmission, and Family Space in India.\u201d","volume":"39","author":"Khalikova","year":"2020","journal-title":"Medical Anthropology"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.35","first-page":"74","article-title":"\u201cThe Curse of Infertility in Manju Kapur\u2019s Home.\u201d","volume":"11","author":"Khanna","year":"2015","journal-title":"Dialogue: A Journal Devoted to Literary Appreciation"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.36","unstructured":"Kleinman A . 1989. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, And The Human Condition. New York: Hachette Book Group."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.37","unstructured":"Kristeva J . 1982. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. European Perspectives: A Series of the Columbia University Press."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.38","unstructured":"Layne L. L . 2013. Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America. New York: Routledge."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Murali C. , and Venkatesh S. . 2022. Infertility Comics and Graphic Medicine. Routledge Focus on Gender, Sexuality, and Comics. Routledge.","DOI":"10.4324\/9781003028628"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.40","unstructured":"Nichter M . 1989. Anthropology and International Health: South Asian Case Studies. Culture, Illness and Healing. Springer."},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.3138\/ijfab.10.1.119","article-title":"\u201cPronatalism, Geneticism, and ART.\u201d","volume":"10","author":"Petropanagos","year":"2017","journal-title":"International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.42","unstructured":"Rajagopal R. S . 2021. What\u2019s A Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina? A Memoir of Infertility. Ebury Press."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ram K . 2013. \u201cThe Abject Body of Infertility.\u201d In Fertile Disorder: Spirit Possession and Its Provocation of the Modern, edited by Ram K. , 106\u201331. University of Hawai\u2019i Press. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.21313\/hawaii\/9780824836306.003.0005.","DOI":"10.21313\/hawaii\/9780824836306.003.0005"},{"issue":"11","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.44","first-page":"1195","article-title":"\u201cStrategic Uses of Narrative in the Presentation of Self and Illness: A Research Note.\u201d","volume":"30","author":"Riessman","year":"1990","journal-title":"Social Science &amp; Medicine, Special Issue Qualitative Research On Chronic Illness"},{"issue":"7","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1055","DOI":"10.1111\/1467-9566.12281","article-title":"\u201cRuptures and Sutures: Time, Audience and Identity in an Illness Narrative.\u201d","volume":"37","author":"Riessman","year":"2015","journal-title":"Sociology of Health & Illness"},{"issue":"5","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjopen-2020-044003","article-title":"\u201cScoping Review of the Psychosocial Aspects of Infertility in Developing Countries: Protocol.\u201d","volume":"11","author":"Salie","year":"2021","journal-title":"BMJ Open"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.47","first-page":"123","article-title":"\u201cSocio-Demographic Correlates of Women\u2019s Infertility and Treatment Seeking Behavior in India.\u201d","volume":"17","author":"Sarkar","year":"2016","journal-title":"Journal of Reproduction & Infertility"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.48","unstructured":"Sharf B. F. , and Vanderford M. L. . 2003. \u201cIllness Narratives and the Social Construction of Health.\u201d In Handbook of Health Communication, 9\u201334. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers."},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Singh H. D . 2022. Infertility in a Crowded Country: Hiding Reproduction in India. Indiana: Indiana University Press.","DOI":"10.2307\/j.ctv2w42f35"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"129","DOI":"10.4103\/ijcm.IJCM_172_18","article-title":"\u201cComparative Study to Determine the Prevalence and Socio-Cultural Practices of Infertility in Rural and Urban Field Practice Area of Tertiary Care Hospital, Vijayapura, Karnataka.\u201d","volume":"44","author":"Udgiri","year":"2019","journal-title":"Indian Journal of Community Medicine"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Unnithan M . 2019. Fertility, Health and Reproductive Politics: Re-Imagining Rights in India. Oxford, New York: Routledge.","DOI":"10.4324\/9780429465482"},{"issue":"6","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.52","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"576","DOI":"10.1080\/00497878.2020.1785879","article-title":"\u201cThe Infertile Body in the Clinic: Medicalization, Gaze, and Loss of Agency in Women\u2019s Infertility Comics.\u201d","volume":"49","author":"Venkatesan","year":"2020","journal-title":"Women\u2019s Studies"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.53","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Vickers N . 2016. \u201cIllness Narratives.\u201d In A History of English Autobiography, edited by Smyth A , 388\u2013401. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9781139939799.027"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"341","DOI":"10.1007\/s11019-014-9608-3","article-title":"\u201cMedicalization and Epistemic Injustice.\u201d","volume":"18","author":"Wardrope","year":"2015","journal-title":"Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.55","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.fertnstert.2005.11.039"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.56","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"175","DOI":"10.1111\/1467-9566.ep10778250","article-title":"\u201cThe Genesis of Chronic Illness: Narrative Re\u2010construction.\u201d","volume":"6","author":"Williams","year":"1984","journal-title":"Sociology of Health & Illness"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.57","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"VC19","DOI":"10.5463\/ejlw.3.90","article-title":"\u201cIllness Narrative and Self-Help Culture \u2013Self-Help Writing on Age-Related Infertility.\u201d","volume":"3","author":"Wohlmann","year":"2014","journal-title":"European Journal of Life Writing"},{"key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.58","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.fertnstert.2017.06.005"},{"issue":"245","key":"2025092412333139000_51.1.76.59","first-page":"210","article-title":"\u201cMedicine as an Institution of Social Control.\u201d","volume":"41","author":"Zola","year":"1976","journal-title":"Ekistics"}],"container-title":["Medical Humanities"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/syndication.highwire.org\/content\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2024-012977","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,24]],"date-time":"2025-09-24T19:33:47Z","timestamp":1758742427000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/medhum-2024-012977"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,17]]},"references-count":59,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,24]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,3]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1136\/medhum-2024-012977"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/medhum-2024-012977","relation":{},"ISSN":["1468-215X","1473-4265"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1468-215X","type":"print"},{"value":"1473-4265","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,17]]}}}