[The poverty of the research].

This chapter presents an argument about both the narrow and the wider meanings of the Social Support and Pregnancy Outcome study. It addresses the question of findings within three contexts. The first context is that of previous work on social support and health, and of the relations between social and material support; in other words, does befriending pregnant women make sense when their greatest enemy is not lack of social support but inadequate material resourcing of motherhood? The second context is the cultural treatment of women and reproduction; here the question is about the implications of the study for the routine provision of maternity care. The third context relates to the question of who listens, and attends, to the results of research; because of the problematic nature of this part of the process, the question is: does research make any difference to the ‘real’ world anyway?