ABSTRACT
In this book our thesis has been that the perceptions and beliefs held about pregnancy, including by women themselves, have determined both the research carried out on pregnancy, from a number of different perspectives, and the outcomes of that research in terms of its impact. On its own, this is hardly a novel thesis. However, we would argue that what we have been able to show, by looking at pregnancy in relation to the daily experiences of women's lives ± cognition, employment, diet and exercise ± is that it is crucial to see women's responses to their pregnancy as one dimension of an ongoing life of commitments, relationships, attitudes and expectations that goes beyond the pregnancy. Combining the different topics we have discussed, we have identi®ed a number of common themes, including several familiar discourses of pregnancy. The very consistency of these themes across the domains highlights their potential impact on women's lives during pregnancy. Furthermore, it raises the question as to whether pregnancy can be said to be special or whether it can be regarded as simply another facet of the well-documented territory of people's lives, particularly women's lives, more generally.
