Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Medicine
Episode: Natali Valdez, "Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era" (U California Press, 2022)
Description: In Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era (University of California Press, 2022), Natali Valdez examines research trials that enroll pregnant people in the United States and England. These research trials aim to lower the health risks to future generations by intervening in and studying the diet and exercise of pregnant people. As an ethnographer, Valdez enrolled pregnant participants into the studies, met with them to administer the intervention, and observed the processes of the trials. Valdez argues that these studies focus on the pregnant individual without accounting for the social, cultural, economic, and environmental fa...