Month: August 2024

When ‘we’ is more than two: families and infertility in India

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Written by Arushi Kothari and Parul Bansal

A child holds great value for individuals, couples, families and communities across the world. One only has to look at ancient art, literature, architecture to unpack the deep emotional and psychological significance that pregnancy, birth and parenthood has been imbued with across cultures. Thus childlessness, particularly due to infertility, has gained immense focus in the past 40 years, particularly with the arrival of advanced assistive reproductive technologies (ARTs). Within this complex interweb of medicine, desire and relationships, our work has focused on the experiences of low-income childless couples dealing with infertility in India. The narrative qualitative research involved in-depth interviews with 12 low-income couples seeking infertility treatment at a private IVF centre in New Delhi, India.

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Lies, Lies, it’s all Lies! Discussing Vaginal Cleansing Products from a Critical Health Perspective

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Written by: Mariangela Del Monaco, Sarah Cappellaro, and Vaidehi Patel

Vaginal cleansing products such as douches, washes, sprays, and wipes have become extremely popular in the last few decades. Despite their popularity, these products may pose health risk to their users like yeast infections, urinary tract infections (UTIs), and bacterial vaginosis (BV). Could this mean people prioritize a “clean” vagina over a “healthy” vagina?

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Make Believe

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Some inspiration for ways to think differently about healthcare practice

Written by Dave Nicholls. Re-published with permission from ParaDoxa

Those of you who had followed the Critical Physio blog before ParaDoxa started will know that I teach a postgrad course for experienced health professionals. The course is designed to get them to think deeply and critically about themselves as professionals, their profession, and the myriad others they work with. Crucially, it’s designed to get them to think in unfamiliar ways about work that has, for some, become stale through familiarity.

As part of the assessment, they produce six artefacts that can be in any medium, any style or form, but they are especially encouraged to express themselves without words. Periodically I’d post up some images from the last course to showcase some of the creative things they have produced as inspiration for the times when we all feel a little blocked.

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