The provision of care for these women and families is grounded in assumptions that are made about women ’ s lives based on a standardized model of the heterosexual family. Smith (1999) described the operations of an ideologic code, which she calls SNAF or the Standard North American Family. SNAF-ordered discourses of preterm birth obscure the confl ict between medical prescriptions of bed rest and some women ’ s breadwinner responsibilities. In SNAF, the woman ’ s earnings are supplementary, so early maternity leave is presumed not to cause fi nancial hardship. But real women ’ s ability to comply with bed rest treatment is directly linked to the amount of family caregiving work needed and the fi nancial resources available to families. That information about women ’ s circumstances is not actively elicited with respect to treatment for preterm labor reveals how SNAF operates in a way that is detrimental to women in vulnerable situations.