Lifelong significance of disempowering experiences in prenatal and maternity care: interviews with elderly Swedish women.

In this article I show how the effects of harsh and humiliating treatment, experienced by a number of Swedish women in antenatal care and childbirth in the mid-20th Century, endured for the rest of their lives. This treatment was carried out by medical staff in conformity with a view of expectant mothers as irresponsible and ignorant and with the prevalent idea of "natural birth." These effects were findings in an interview investigation that, with a colleague, I conducted into paid and unpaid work and health of 20 women, seen in a lifetime perspective. Our biomedical way of understanding risks and complications during pregnancy and birthing was confronted with many participants' feelings of distress, guilt, and grief linked to their childbearing experience. I interpret the treatments as "violations of dignity" and as abuse. The consequences are similar to those following traumatic birth experiences described in today's literature.

"You really do something useful with kids": mothering and experienced health and illness in a group of elderly Swedish women.

This article is based on in-dept interviews with 20 elderly Swedish women, and deals with mother's child-caring work and related health and illness. Mothering included invisible work as well as physically heavy tasks, both aspects often neglected in research. The attitude of the children's father had a great impact on the work. Feelings of success or failure at bringing up their children affected the women's experience of health/ill health throughout their lives. Their health as elderly women depended on the health and happiness of their, now adult, children.

Health-promoting aspects of a paid job: findings in a qualitative interview study with elderly women in Sweden.

This article is one aspect of a larger, qualitative interview study and deals with health-promoting aspects of gainful employment, as experienced by a group of elderly Swedish women. Through these interviews we demonstrate the central importance of outside employment for many of the women, although they belonged to a generation where outside work conflicted with societal norms. We will illustrate a wide variety of ways in which gainful employment can contribute to women's well-being and, ultimately, their health.

Humour, beauty, and culture as personal health resources: experiences of elderly Swedish women.

AIM: This paper explores how a group of elderly women used humour, beauty, and cultural activities to maintain physical and mental well-being. METHODS: The paper reports on one aspect of a qualitative study on women's work and health in a lifetime perspective. Interviews with 20 strategically selected Swedish women, aged 63 to 83 years, were audiotaped and analysed according to a phenomenological approach. RESULTS: During the interview process, the researchers became increasingly aware that the women had clear ideas about what enabled them to feel well and healthy - even when actually quite diseased. Creating and enjoying humour, beauty, and culture formed part of such strategies. Joking with workmates made hard, low-status jobs easier, helped them endure pain, and helped balance marital difficulties. Creating a nice and comfortable home gave pleasure and a little luxury in a life filled with necessities. Making articles for everyday use more beautiful was regarded as worthwhile, because it gave delight to them and their families. Gains from cultural activities were social, aesthetic, and existential - the latter through a feeling of self-recognition and being heard. CONCLUSIONS: Humour, beauty, and culture formed a greater part of these women's survival strategies than expected. Making everyday life more aesthetic is an undervalued aspect of women's health-creating work in the family. Through their lifelong experience as carers and homemakers, elderly women possess special knowledge regarding what may promote health, a knowledge that should be tapped. When supplying elderly women with social care, their needs for humour, beauty, and culture should be respected.

"It's heavenly to be alone!": a room of one's own as a health-promoting resource for women. Results from a qualitative study.

AIM: This paper describes strategies developed by women to handle lack of time for themselves, and lack of freedom, in private life. METHODS: The paper reports on one self-assessed health resource identified in a larger qualitative study on women's paid and unpaid work and health/sickness. Twenty strategically selected women were interviewed, elderly women being chosen to obtain a lifetime perspective. The interviews were audio-taped and analysed according to a phenomenological approach. RESULTS: Expectations had been placed on the interviewees as women: to give care, always to be available for other family members, to adjust to their husbands. Many of them recalled seeking privacy ("a room of one's own") to avoid constant demands and interruptions, and as a refuge from partner domination. This was a conscious health-promoting strategy on their part. A room of one's own did not necessarily mean a physical room, but the right to -- and the possibility of -- a life of one's own. Forms of privacy included gainful employment, a separate bedroom, own social engagements. CONCLUSIONS: Family life still demands more from women than from men, putting many women under constant time pressure and without time for themselves. In heterosexual relationships, women frequently feel controlled. Prevailing norms for married women and mothers, causing blame and feelings of guilt, remain obstacles to women wanting "a room of their own". The health resource of having such a room, and strategies for creating one, should be given attention in medical research and practice -- not least in primary care.

Compulsive sensitivity--a consequence of caring: a qualitative investigation into women carer's difficulties in limiting their labours.

Women are expected to care, both in public and private life, for the sick as well as the healthy. Some women have difficulties in limiting their caring, despite being deeply careworn. In this life-course study, based on in-depth interviews with elderly women in Sweden, the concept "compulsive sensitivity" presents a way toward understanding their difficulties. Compulsive sensitivity denotes the compulsion to see and respond to other people's needs, whatever one's own situation.