Writing in this journal 18 years ago, Clive Seale posed—and answered—the question, ‘why should medical sociologists study the media?’. He argued that ‘we must … understand popular media if we are to understand experience [including of health and illness] and its rendering in narrative forms’. He bemoaned a separation between the fields of media studies and the sociology of health and illness (Seale, 2003, p. 513). Almost two decades later, in a dramatically different media landscape, Das attempts to bring similar fields together. In Das' monograph, she draws upon sociological inquiry into parenting culture studies and communication studies' discussion of mediation.

In the first two chapters, Das brings in, and extensively references, these two fields. She cites Bird, Silverstone, Thompson and Couldry to argue that mediation in contemporary (digital) societies is not so much about studies of representation, audience reception or media effects, but about the very matrix which ties the social together. From parenting culture studies, Das builds on Tyler's notion of the ‘fetal celebrity’ and Parker's ‘maternal ideal’ to formulate the ‘perinatal ideal’, discussions around which the empirical sections of the book are analysed. The ‘perinatal ideal’ is ‘a mediated, responsibilising, individualising set of conditions’ (Das, 2020, p. 22), which creates a particular pervasive ideology about the perinatal period (the months before and after childbirth). The ideology is very much couched in Hay's ethic of ‘intensive motherhood’.

The empirical sections of the book are based upon data collected in interviews with mothers, analysis of YouTube videos of hypnobirths, content from an online parenting forum, a Facebook group focussed on natural births and some Twitter posts. Das makes several key conclusions about use of the digital and the varying emotional impacts of such media and conditions of the perinatal. These include a finding that British mothers and more affluent migrant mothers seemed to similarly experience the benefits and potential harms of digital media, while less affluent migrant mothers did not access the digital in equivalent ways (Das, 2020, p. 90). Digital connections made in the perinatal period were found to be often short lived but had the potential for lasting emotional impacts (Das, 2020, p. 92). In Das' focus on mediated discussions of ‘natural births’, she conceptualises them as simultaneously a feminist rejection of disempowering obstetric practices, while also highly intensive, (self) regulated and individualising (Das, 2020, p. 18). This leads to a very interesting examination of how narratives contrary to the exclusively positive rhetoric on natural birthing on particular online groups is shut down and labelled as ‘horror stories’ (Das, 2020, p. 63).

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book is a seeming lack of disambiguation in considerations of anxiety. I did not identify a differentiation between clinical anxiety and worrying. Anxiety was at times framed as part and parcel of the perinatal condition and also as socially constructed. There was a noting of some uncertainty of the latter point but no real unpacking of it.

Altogether, this book presents a novel, timely and useful drawing together of previously siloed discussion of mediation and parenting culture studies. Implications for maternal well‐being are considered in very much a holistic sense and an argument for either wholesale positive or negative impacts to well‐being from mediation is rejected. Instead, there is a nuanced, complex picture of mediation, considerations of ‘good’ mothering and maternal social well‐being.

18年前，克莱夫·西尔（Clive Seale）在这本杂志上写道，并回答了一个问题：“医学社会学家为什么要研究媒体？”。他辩称，“如果我们要了解经验（包括健康和疾病）及其以叙述形式呈现，就必须……了解大众媒体”。他为媒体研究领域与健康与疾病社会学领域之间的分离感到be惜（Seale，2003年，第513页）。大约二十年后，在截然不同的媒体环境中，达斯（Das）试图将相似的领域整合在一起。在达斯专着中，她借鉴了对养育文化研究和传播研究对调解的社会学探究。

在前两章中，Das引入并广泛引用了这两个领域。她引用伯德，西尔弗斯通，汤普森和库尔德利的观点认为，当代（数字）社会的调解与其说是关于表征，受众接受或媒体效果的研究，不如说是将社会联系在一起的矩阵。通过育儿文化研究，达斯基于泰勒的“胎儿名人”概念和帕克的“母亲理想”来制定“围产期理想”，并围绕该书的实证部分进行了讨论。``围产期理想''是``一种介导的，负责任的，个性化的条件''（Das，2020，第 22），这在围产期（分娩前后的几个月）中产生了一种特别普遍的意识形态。意识形态在海耶（Hay）的“强化母性”道德观念中非常牢固。

本书的实证部分基于对母亲的采访，对YouTube催眠视频的分析，在线育儿论坛的内容，专注于自然出生的Facebook小组以及一些Twitter帖子中收集的数据。达斯（Das）对数字的使用以及这种媒体和围产期状况的不同情感影响做出了几个关键结论。其中包括一项发现，即英国母亲和富裕的移徙母亲似乎同样经历了数字媒体的好处和潜在的危害，而富裕的移徙母亲没有以相同的方式访问数字媒体（Das，2020年，第90页）。发现围产期建立的数字连接通常寿命短，但可能会产生持久的情感影响（Das，2020年），第 92）。在Das对“自然出生”的中介讨论的关注中，她将它们概念化为同时反对女权主义剥夺产科实践的女权主义者，同时也高度集权地（自我）调节和个体化（Das，2020，第18页）。这引起了一个非常有趣的研究，即如何将与特定在线群体上关于自然分娩的纯粹正面言论相反的叙述关闭并标记为“恐怖故事”（Das，2020年，第63页）。

本书最有争议的方面也许是在焦虑方面似乎没有歧义。我没有发现临床焦虑与忧虑之间的区别。焦虑有时是围产期疾病的一部分，也是社会因素。注意到后一点有一些不确定性，但并没有真正解开它。

总的来说，这本书提出了一种新颖，及时和有用的图文，将以前孤立的调解和育儿文化研究讨论进行了汇总。从很大程度上讲，对孕产妇福祉的含义是一个整体意义，而对于调解对福祉的整体正面或负面影响的论点则被拒绝。取而代之的是，对调解有细微入微，复杂的描述，对“良好”的母亲和孕产妇的社会福祉的考虑。