In this work, the author's detailed readings of birth stories - both literary and medical - reveal deeply embedded assumptions about how women are viewed and view ourselves. The current debates about natural childbirth as advocated by Sheila Kitzinger, Grantly Read Dick and others, are examined alongside key literary works by writers such as Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon and Toni Morrison. Cosslett's case for a re-evaluation of motherhood in today's society aims to present a challenge as much to feminists themselves as to the medical and scientific world.