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Labour of love? What women need to know about childbirth

Pregnant women are still woefully ill-prepared for the gruelling experience ahead of them and the life-changing damage that often results, says Lucy Jones

17 June 2023

9:00 AM

17 June 2023

9:00 AM

Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood Lucy Jones

Allen Lane, pp.176, 25

‘The birthing mother is surrounded by the dusts of death,’ reads an inscription on a 3,000-year-old clay tablet, thought to be an ancient Assyrian incantation to ward off death in childbirth. There have been pressings of beads into clay, writings on vellum or cave walls and singing and making art about childbirth and motherhood for as long as small humans have been emerging from women’s bodies.

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