2min chapter

After Words cover image

Rebecca Grant, "Birth - Three Mothers, Nine Months, and Pregnancy in America"

After Words

CHAPTER

The Importance of Pregnancy and Birth

I wanted to present pregnancy and birth as something that is like, the sort of starting point. There's more blood going through your body than you were used to or your boobs are bigger or you're really nauseous. I mean, it's just this very strange experience where your body is changing out from under you. And for some people, it feels I think great the whole time, but I think for a lot of people, it really doesn't.

00:00
Speaker 2
And it's interesting that for all three of them, this was their first child. Mm-hmm. What was the thinking behind that?
Speaker 1
I wanted to present pregnancy and birth as something that is like, the sort of starting point is this idea in some ways that this is something that's completely routine and mundane, right? It's like millions of babies are born in the US every year. You get to a certain phase in your life and it just seems like everyone you know probably is having babies are going through this process. And yet at the same time, it's actually like this really kind of incredible, weird, alarming, stressful, bizarre experience to go through too. There's so much that people don't know. Everyone reacts differently. Your whole body is changing. There's more blood going through your body than you were used to or your boobs are bigger or you're really nauseous. I mean, whatever it is, right? I mean, it's just this very strange experience where your body is sort of changing out from under you. And for some people, it feels I think great the whole time, but I think for a lot of people, it really doesn't. And so I think I wanted people who hadn't been pregnant and then given birth before because they were discovering, they were embarking on this process of discovering like what am I like as a pregnant person? What does my body involve? And like, oh, I didn't know about this test or scan. What is this? Because I do think for a lot of people, once you've done it once, even if subsequent pregnancy is really different, you still kind of know what to expect. Like you've gone through it. And so I really wanted people who were doing it for the first time because I just felt like there would be this sort of measure of discovery and intensity that I wanted the reader to be able to participate in as well.
Speaker 2
Right, exactly.

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