Thread A Caesarean story of myth, magic and medicine

<p>The words '<i>Caesarean Section,</i>' are powerful. They conjure up strong emotions. For some, feelings of doubt, shame and judgement. For others a sense of safety, relief, validation and reassurance. But they are rarely spoken of in the ecstatic tones with which we celebrate so-called natural, or vaginal birth. They are rarely called beautiful, or associated with an innate sense of feminine power. Can Caesarean birth also be magical? Mystical? Awe-inspiring? Knotting its way through history, culture, folklore and human experience throughout the world, <i>Thread </i>seeks to reframe the Caesarean Section on its journey through myth, magic and medicine.<br><br>Journalist Hannah Marsh blends the medical with the mystical, charting the development of a now common procedure, once a dance between life and death: a last-ditch attempt to save a child whose mother lay dead or dying. Weaving in the arc of her own experience, a journalist's insatiable curiosity, and the stories of women, contemporary, historical and mythical, who endured, sacrificed and drove developments, <i>Thread </i>is an unflinching but compassionate examination of a procedure that nowadays remains both pedestrian and miraculous.</p>