“Like a sediment that stays in the body”: Social percep-tion of persistent toxic substances and other synthetic chemical substances in food among pregnant and breastfeeding women in Spain

Abstract

This paper analyzes the ways in which pregnant and breastfeeding women perceive the presence of chemical substances in food products. It also addresses how they reflect on the effects of those substances on their own health and that of the baby and the fetus when they think about processes of accumulation, transmission and elimination of those substances inside their bodies. Our first hypothesis is that women’s discourses about the health effects of Persistent Toxic Substances (PTS) are related to the social distance of the social actors that reproduce these discourses. The acceptability of these discourses is more evident the greater is the trust in the social actors who transmit this information. This paper analyzes the discourses of health workers and the close social environment of these women, since both play an essential role in the transmission of these discourses. Despite the fact that the dietary advice received by women is strongly medicalized, the information provided on chemical substances in food in the medical environment is scarce and not homogeneous. Thus, this type of risk is made invisible in the doctor-patient relationship, and the responsi-bility for managing it usually falls on women.