Child Birth and its Effect on Functional Status of Women: A Review

Though highly satisfying motherhood comes with its own challenges. Often underestimated, the effect of child birth on maternal function is a huge and can invariably effect not only the individual but the society in general. Yet there seems to be an attitude of “its all part and parcel of motherhood” when it comes to the functional status of mothers. To improve the functional status of women one needs to quantify it and a scale for Indian mothers are not in existence yet. No matter the mode of delivery , the maternal function is compromised, its said that the physiological healing is complete at 6 weeks post delivery but the researchers are not able to come to terms regarding time needed to achieve the pre pregnancy functional status or in many cases if it ever returns. Hence the gravity of situation is dare and needs acknowledgment not only from the health care professionals but from the society in general. In this article, we are examining the different modes of delivery and its subsequent effect on physical functions of women.

Hot and Cool Mothers

“Hot and Cool Mothers” moves toward a media theory of mothering and parental “fitness.” The article begins with an investigation into midcentury pediatric psychological studies on Bad Mothers and their impacts on their children. The most famous, if not persistent, of these diagnoses is that of the so-called refrigerator mother. The refrigerator mother is not the only bad model of maternality that midcentury psychiatry discovered, however; overstimulating mothers, called in this study “hot mothers,” were identified as equally problematic. From the mid-1940s until the 1960s and beyond, class, race, and maternal function were linked in metaphors of temperature. Whereas autism and autistic states have been extensively elaborated in their relationship to digital media, this article attends to attributed maternal causes of “emotionally disturbed,” queer, and neurodivergent children. The author argues that these newly codified diagnoses were inseparable from midcentury conceptions of stimulation, mediation, domesticity, and race, including Marshall McLuhan’s theory of hot and cool media, as well as maternal absence and (over)presence, echoes of which continue in the present in terms like “helicopter parent.”

Building empathic bridges: Cross-cultural ‘maternal’ attunement in group psychotherapy for immigrants and refugees

Today, the immigrant population is significantly increasing in many countries, and some therapists are convening groups specifically devoted to them. Therapy with immigrants requires maintaining the emotional connection between persons of different cultures. Since culture is initially transmitted in pre-verbal interactions between mothers and infants, the field of mother-infant research can be utilized to provide models for mutual attunement in group psychotherapy. A revised understanding of the ‘mother group’ is proposed in terms of actual observed interactions as complementary to the inferred group dynamics in theories of ‘the group as mother’. Consideration is given to how healthy attachment and collaboration can be facilitated in the group. Since many refugees and asylum seekers suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, special attention is given to the maternal function of containment with respect to traumatic enactments in groups.

International Standards Governing the Execution of Sentences for Women Sentenced to Imprisonment

The article deals with the provisions of international standards of treatment of convicted women and their implementation in the process of execution of imprisonment. The results of the analysis of international documents and practice of application showed the following problems: physiological, social, moral, psychological and criminological characteristics of women are not taken into account, which indicates the absence of gender differences in the legal situation. In addition, this circumstance has a negative impact on the implementation of the penal policy of Russia. The study of the provisions of international and domestic penal legislation, as well as the practice of carrying out the maternal function of a woman sentenced to imprisonment, preparing her for release and problems after release indicate the existence of different approaches in the policies of specific States.

Maternal and paternal functions in the formation of subjectivity: Kristeva and Lacan

The Kristeva–Lacan relationship has been a difficult one, with commentators tending to either collapse the former into the latter or insist on an absolute division wherein Kristeva emphasizes the maternal function over Lacan’s privileging of the symbolic paternal law. In contrast, I argue that Kristeva’s actual position regarding Lacan and, by extension, the semiotic–symbolic relation is far more complicated than even her defenders often realize, before turning to the role(s) that the paternal function play(s) in Lacan’s analysis of the psyche’s movement into the symbolic to show that nevertheless Kristeva’s critique is based on a number of key misreadings regarding Lacan’s conception of (1) the paternal function, (2) the maternal–paternal relation and (3) the movement from the pre-symbolic to the symbolic. Rather than operating through a straightforward binary opposition between a maternal and a (privileged, repressive) paternal function, Lacan actually claims, in a similar vein to Kristeva, that the transmission of the symbolic law occurs through a complex and heterogeneous process wherein both the maternal and paternal functions are multiple and bound to and expressive of the other. This sheds light on the Kristeva–Lacan relationship, defends Lacan against the charge that he affirms a straightforward logic of patriarchy, identifies the multidimensionality inherent in both Kristeva’s and Lacan’s notions of the maternal and paternal functions and shows how the intertwinement of both functions aids the formation of subjectivity generally and the child’s symbolic acquisition specifically.