The embodied organization of a real-time fetus: The visible and the invisible in prenatal ultrasound examinations

Abstract

Through an analysis of videotaped interactions between healthcare professionals and pregnant women during ultrasound prenatal examinations in Japan, I explore some aspects of sequence organization in which an ultrasound real-time fetus is organized. The ultrasound demonstration of the fetal condition is an intrinsically interactional and distributed achievement. The ultrasound fetus is constructed as a real-time object in a particular technological environment; in this environment, the participants’ orientations to spatially separated operational fields, that is, the monitor screen and the woman’s abdomen, are exhibited and integrated in the actual course of interaction. In conclusion, the fundamental relation between organizational lived work in a technological environment and the observable features of technology will be suggested.