This article discusses the results of ethnographic research conducted in the municipality
of Verona (Veneto Region, Northeast Italy), during 2018, aimed at analysing the re-
productive health needs of migrant women, and their access to such services in the
territory. The research highlighted that, in addition to many critical structural-
organizational issues, there was an emotional obstacle to the use of services – that is,
the feeling of fear. In this paper, therefore, we will try to reflect on the role exercised by
fear in the relationship between migrant women and reproductive health services. We
interpret this emotion not as the expression of an individual experience and feeling, but
rather as an example of “embedded thinking”; the result of a social construction that
reflects dynamics and power relationships, capable of transforming feelings into practices
