ArticleSocial studies of science2016
The maternal body as environment in autism science.
Article in Social studies of science, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Categorical misalignment: Making autism(s) in big data biobanking.Social studies of science · 2025Article
- 'Our biology is listening': biomarkers as molecular vestiges of early life and the production of positive childhood experiences in behavioral epigenetics.BioSocieties · 2025Article
- The Temporal Politics of Placenta Epigenetics: Bodies, Environments and Time.Body & society · 2023Article
- Acid-Responsive Dual-Targeted Nanoparticles Encapsulated Aspirin Rescue the Immune Activation and Phenotype in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2022Article
- Environmental Politics of Reproduction.Annual review of anthropology · 2019Article
- Polygenic risk-stratified screening for cancer: Responsibilization in public health genomics.Social studies of science · 2019Article
- The paradox of care in behavioral epigenetics: Constructing early-life adversity in the lab.BioSocieties · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Research on autism and environmental risk factors has expanded substantially in recent years. My analysis draws attention to the regimes of perceptibility that shape how the environment is materialized in post-genomic science. I focus on how more complex narratives of autism's causes and social anxieties surrounding child development have helped situate autism risk in women's bodies before and during pregnancy. This has resulted in what I call the maternal body as environment in autism science. I show that this figure involves three characteristics: the molecularization of the environment, an individualization of risk, and the internalization of responsibility. I argue that these three features point to a new spatial and temporal politics of risk and responsibility that may heighten social and medical surveillance of women's bodies and decisions, eclipsing larger questions about the uneven distribution of exposures in society and more holistic understandings of health that include neurodiversity. I conclude by considering what the maternal body as environment signals for women, social justice, and the politics of environmental health in the post-genomic era.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.