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.

When I found out I was expecting my first baby I knew I had some significant fears about childbirth and wasn’t sure how I was going to handle labour. As I started looking for midwives in my area I came across a few who talked about supporting women to birth physiologically, who had a philosophy that birth is natural…