BORN: A History of Childbirth for Bloomsbury Continuum

Apologies for the long silence. There has been a lot going on at Inglis HQ, but the best news of all is announced officially today in The Bookseller.

I am delighted to be working with Tomasz and the team at Bloomsbury Continuum, and also my agent Jason Bartholomew at bks agency, who has seen this book safely to its new home.

Born began just over 13 years ago with the story of Jan Van Rymsdyk, a Dutch artist who illustrated the first two ‘modern’ obstetric manuals in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Rymsdyk fascinated me. A modern photorealist in the body of a periodically drunken, ‘raw-boned’ Dutchman of huge height and stature, more a docker than an artist. Yet his work on the anatomised bodies of the women and babies who had died in childbirth holds a tenderness and beauty that captures the extraordinary moment that is the formation of a new life, and the indescribable sadness of its loss.

These two manuals, written for doctors and laymen and midwives alike, have saved untold millions of lives since publication, and continue to do so in communities such as the Amish, and other orthodox religions that cannot consult textbooks containing photographs or ‘machinery’ that is not permitted.

From there, I began to research childbirth as not so much an expected part of the female life cycle, but as a phenomenon in itself. Conception, pregnancy and the act of childbirth have held a special place in human society since prehistory, hence the book begins with the hunter-gatherers of the Ice Age, and end with the reversal of Roe vs. Wade. It is not only the physical story of birth, but the story of the continuing struggle for female bodily autonomy, and the obstacles placed in the way so frequently throughout history. It is also a story of ritual and religion, the strictures of society and the primal nature of the one defining event all mankind shares in common: we are born.

The research and writing of this book has taken me to Ohio, Leiden, Amsterdam, and the Golden Temple of Amritsar to name but a few. For it to have found such a safe home after its long journey is a source of great joy at Inglis HQ. More news as it comes.