WB Yeats once wrote that only two subjects were of interest to the serious mind: sex and death. But what about birth? The birth scene is now a staple of film and television, but strangely absent from fiction – sometimes alluded to in passing, but rarely dwelt on in closeup. This is a curious omission, because (as the TV executives know) if you show a woman in labour, you also show her world: her relationship with the people she loves and who love her, as well as with her body, her gender, herself. Giving birth involves risk, pain, love, transformation and the threat of loss: big, meaty themes, the very stuff of life. So why do writers shy away from it?
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