The first thousand days: motherhood, scientific knowledge, and local histories
Open accessAbstract
Since 2013, South African nutrition policy focuses on "the first thousand days," (conception to two years), informed by Developmental Origins of Health and Disease research. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show how policy foregrounds certain categories of persons and casts "the maternal" as a time frame for interventions to secure future health and argue that this constitutes a "knowledge effect" - the outcome of framing questions in a particular way and with specific knowledge horizons.
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In the South African literature, there is a growing corpus of social science research that attends to the diversity of maternal subjectivity.
“There is a similar pattern in the South African literature: while there is a growing corpus of social science research that attends to the diversity of maternal subjectivity (30–36).”
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Torres, N. F., Watson, D., Mohlomi, L., Hlungwani, T., Gardiner, C. V., Muller-Kluits, N., Norris, S. A., Draper, C. E., & Pentecost, M. (2026) · Frontiers in Global Women's Health · doi:10.3389/fgwh.2026.1880613
Self-citation
- Authors
- Pentecost, M., & Ross, F.
- Affiliations
- University of Cape Town (ZA)
- Corresponding author
- Pentecost, Michelle
- Venue
- Medical Anthropology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2019-04-04
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 747-761
- ISSN
- 0145-9740 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-5882
- OpenAlex
- W2929568017
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 42.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- kclpure.kcl.ac.uk
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Medical Anthropology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Research Foundation South Africa (98966)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Child Nutrition and Water Access
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Public Health and Nutrition
- Keywords
- first 1000 days, maternal health, nutrition policy, developmental origins of health and disease, knowledge effects, policy framing, motherhood, local history, South Africa, infant and child nutrition
- MeSH terms
- Female, Humans, Infant, Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Infant, Newborn, Mothers, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Complications, Infectious, South Africa, HIV Infections, Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical, Maternal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Epigenomics, Anthropology, Medical
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