‘If you cherish your body, you shouldn’t get pregnant’
Bodily costs of childbearing in influencing Chinese female university students’ fertility intentions
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23310685 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jiayu Xu (0009-0009-9050-5435, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen), Yiyue Huangfu (0000-0002-4221-6294, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-13 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Culture Health & Sexuality (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-1058 • E-ISSN: 1464-5351 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13691058.2026.2701930 |
| PMID | 42489626 |
| OpenAlex | W7170186993 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 41 |
This paper engages with 'the bodily costs of childbearing' or the negative physical consequences of pregnancy and childbirth and examines their role in shaping Chinese female university students' fertility intentions. A thematic analysis informed by corporeal realism was conducted with 30 semi-structured interviews with female university students without childbearing experience. The findings reveal that women's fear of bodily costs originates from perceived physical harm but is amplified by socio-structural factors, particularly post-feminist discourses that recast these costs as key to women's autonomous self-management. Yet fear alone does not determine fertility intentions. Three interpretive patterns of response were evident: bodily costs as a disease to be avoided by those who reject motherhood; bodily costs as a necessary sacrifice for those who embrace them; and bodily costs as a calculable exchange for those who remain uncertain. Across these patterns, women neither passively succumb to fear nor exercise unconstrained choice. Rather, they engage in the selective appropriation of socially available discourses, constructing meanings that align with their orientations towards motherhood. The body emerges not as a fixed site of suffering but as a negotiated terrain in which social structure and individual agency influence reproductive decision-making.
Agency (philosophy) · Appropriation · Fertility · Flexibility (engineering) · Harm · Masculinity · Population · Thematic analysis · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · Reproductive Health and Technologies
The Body and Social Theory
What is made-in-China feminism(s)? Gender discontent and class friction in post-socialist China
Pregnant Beauty
Breaking Taboos in Women’s Reproductive Health
Body politics, reproductive rights, and digital media advocacy within stigmatized contexts
Bodies
Governing China's Population
On Female Body Experience
The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism
Female university students’ fertility intentions and their psychosocial factors
Status and influencing factors of obstetric violence
Fertility intention of college students responding to the three-child policy in Guangzhou, China
Pale, Young, and Slim” girls on red
Postfeminist media culture
Wang Hong Fashion Culture and the Postfeminist Time in China
Fertility fear” on Chinese social media
I see my section scar like a battle scar”
Why do They Want Others to Suffer the Same Pain They Have Endured?” Weibo Debates about Pain Relief during Childbirth in Neo/Non-Liberal China
Framing the Discourse of Pregnancy and Childbirth
Using thematic analysis in psychology
The Rise in Cesarean Births and the Technocratic Medicalization of Childbirth in Late-Reform China
The Confidence Cult(ure)
Security, Territory, Population
Locating sexual politics and gendered lives
Do Fertility Intentions Affect Fertility Behavior
Beyond control
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |