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Abstract
This dissertation explores the affective nature of maternity wear embodiment on pregnant women as they undergo self-transition in a postfeminist landscape. Using a manuscript style format, it offers new perspectives about the assemblage of human and nonhuman bodies to provide care within various psycho-social settings. To improve pregnant women’s well-being, it becomes necessary to fathom the less conscious feelings of material intimacies, whose presence is crucial to the process of ‘becoming.’ Each study contributes new perspectives about the fluidity of carework between mothers and their garments and ways that their relationship helps to enable the agency of the other. The first study finds that clothing has an impact on maternal-fetal attachment when well-being is taken into consideration. This implies that the process of dressing oneself during pregnancy should be taken more seriously as it is a form of early parenting. The second study investigates bonds that make up the previously used maternity network and finds traces of motherhood carried within the clothing. This suggests that shared maternity garments are crucial to women’s well-being as they are valued for their past life and ability to transfer supportive traits. The third study seeks to understand perceptions about the power of bodies of water on gestational health and swimwear’s ability to challenge and promote feelings of well-being. Maternity swimsuits encourage relaxation, exercise, and greater access to social settings, providing a space for feelings of freedom and self-affirmation. This proposes a greater public commitment to create opportunities for every pregnant individual to swim and have access to maternity swimwear garments. This dissertation finds the wearing of maternity garments to be a highly transformational practice and the garments themselves a reflection of societal values and priorities, but also a form of support when those are insufficient. This dissertation fills a research gap as it applies affect theory to conceptualize the ever-changing entanglement between mothers, fetuses, and garments. Furthermore, it uses the lens of feminist new materialism to recognize the liveliness of maternity garments and their power to aid women during gestation.