A Visitor Within: The Science Of Pregnancy

In tracing a single human pregnancy from conception to breastfeeding, reproductive biologist David Bainbridge reveals how pregnancy actually works - the scientific facts missing from how-to guides for mums.

This book explores some of the age-old questions of medical science:
- why do women have a limited supply of eggs?
- how does an embryo halt its mother's menstrual cycle?
- how does a mother "know" she is pregnant?
- what's the evolutionary role of morning sickness?
- how is a baby put together?
- why does the mother accept the foreign baby?
- why are identical twins never actually identical?
- how do mother and baby survive birth?
- and who times the onset of labour - mother or baby?

There are latest scientific findings against an intriguing historical backdrop of fact, superstition and myth. The book looks at the powerful physical and psychological influences that the mother exerts on the baby, influences that can sometimes even extend into adult life and may even go as far as determining our sexual orientation. By viewing it in the context of the animal kingdom, 'A Visitor Within' shows how the study of human pregnancy can help us to understand who we are and why we behave the way we do.