Susie Kilshaw

Susie's work focuses on reproductive disruptions, pregnancy endings and miscarriage. Her interest on impaired parenthood and compromised reproduction was piqued during her PhD work on Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) and her book Impotent Warriors: Gulf War Syndrome, Vulnerability and Masculinity includes these themes (Berghahn, 2009). Her research explored how cultural context impacts the way pregnancy loss is framed, articulated, and experienced in Qatar and the UK; and led to the book Pregnancy and Miscarriage in Qatar: Women, reproduction and the state (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Navigating Miscarriage: Social, Medical and Conceptual Perspectives (Berghahn, 2020). In 2019 She was awarded a Wellcome Trust University Award to continue her research into pregnancy endings. This ongoing project investigates what is left behind when a pregnancy ends and asks how these materials are perceived and handled in different contexts (clinics, homes, burial sites, crematoria) and by different people (women, their families, doctors, nurses, and funeral staff). For this work she has been based at an NHS Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit and its associated gynaecology wards. Susie has previously worked for the NHS as a clinically applied medical anthropologist.