Gestational work or servitude conceptualises pregnancy and birth as a form of labour of the same ilk as plowing a field or reading for a postgraduate diploma. This is a grave error when it is embraced uncritically. Perhaps, by contrast, a mother’s journey with new life from conception to birth and beyond is the canvas on which her renewed self is being painted. She is not the worker; She is the work.

Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th century German abbess, composer, physician, and seer of visions. She was known to take in pregnant women and care for them, often keeping them under her wing long after they had given birth to their babies[…] This quote describes undisturbed physiological birth and shines as an example of ancient insight from a woman who knew how to witness and respect a mother in labour.