[Air-L] research on birth week groups?

[danah boyd]

A friend of mine is trying to find research on women who are part of  
"birth week" groups.  I've heard a lot about these forming through  
Craigslist, but I don't know who is doing research in this space.   
Does anyone here know?  I've included his full query below.  --danah

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ethan Zuckerman <ethanz at gmail.com>
>
> In the past few (several?) years, online support groups have emerged  
> for women who share a pregnancy due date. Some of these clubs are  
> regional; others are nationwide or worldwide, usually constrained by  
> language. Women participate because it's helpful to compare their  
> experiences to women at the same stage of gestational development.
>
> What's interesting to me about these groups is that they encourage  
> connect - sometimes deep emotional connection - between women who  
> don't share much in common in demograhic/psychograhic terms. These  
> groups are limited by gender, age and basic computer literacy, but  
> they appear to be - if only from anecdotes - more diverse than many  
> voluntary online associations.
>
> I'm interested in whether anyone has done either a detailed  
> ethnographic or a quantitative, survey-based study of one or more of  
> these communities. I'm especially interested in observations on  
> support relationships developing between women who differ in terms  
> of income, race and religion.
>
> -E