Boutique Ultrasound: Love, Law, Medicine, and Consumption

Abstract

Despite FDA recommendations against the practice, keepsake fetal imaging centers have become more common in the United States. U.S. ultrasound regulations construct keepsake imaging in relation to medical practice, yet these centers blur the boundary between medical and nonmedical. Analyzing keepsake imaging centers in two U.S. states demonstrates how centers both appeal to medical expertise to promote their services and extend an intensive mothering ideal to the prenatal stage. To understand keepsake ultrasound, we must account for the role of consumerism in creating pregnant mothers and how keepsake centers constitute ultrasound as a means of expressing mother-love before birth.