Mothering with migraine

Abstract

Menstrual-related migraines affect a large number of people in childbearing age. This article brings together a focus on motherhood and migraine to contribute to an under-researched area of migraine studies. Drawing on crip theory, feminist parenting studies and social studies on chronic pain, we develop the notion of ‘crip mothering’ to describe how mothering takes its shape at the intersection of individual desires and abilities, cultural ideals and social relations, and the affordances of biomedical research and clinical care. We illustrate this through analysis of in-depth interviews with women living with hormonal migraine in Finland. Emerging in these interviews are three modes of mothering: mothering the unborn; mothering with pain; and mothering as intergenerational reparation. Interlocutors regularly recounted experiences of migraine pain being normalized and undertreated, particularly during pregnancy and lactation. The ableist and gendered attitudes towards motherhood and pain demand attention.