The authoritative knowledge claimed by the technological and biomedical institutions which have grown up around the maternal body is founded on the prevention of the potential crises faced by conceiving women. As Tina Cassidy reveals in her engaging study, Birth: A History, expectant mothers are confronted with a bewildering array of professional medical opinions, childcare guidance and health advice. What should women believe? Or, to put it another way, to whose authoritative knowledge should they give credence? And when, if at all, should they introduce knowledge derived from their own personal experience into the birthing process?

The maternal body we have come to know – the conceptual locus for our investment as a society in the care pregnant women should receive, the nature of the pharmacological and surgical intervention applied during labour, and the level of autonomous personhood accorded the developing foetus – has a rich and complex history we are only just beginning to piece together.