Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy. William Wordsworth, ‘Ode, Intimations of Immortality’ 1807
All things have second birth;
The earthquake is not satisfied at once. William Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1850
A simple child, dear brother Jim,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death? William Wordsworth, We Are Seven, 1798
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiple thy sorrow and conception. Genesis 3:16 God to Eve
And he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Genesis 25:33
And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.
And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive. Exodus 1:16-22
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.
And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.
But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.
And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or dove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest. Leviticus 12:2&4-6
And Job spake, and said,
Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. Job 3:2&3&11&16
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. Job 5:7
Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Jeremiah 20:14
Actually I don’t remember being born; it must have happened during one of my black-outs. Jim Morrison
My first words, as I was being born ... I looked up at my mother and said, ‘That’s the last time I’m going up one of those.’ Stephen Fry
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free. Jacques Yves Cousteau
We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death. Charles de Montesquieu
The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the effect of anxiety. Sigmund Freud
Don’t tell your kids you had an easy birth or they won’t respect you. For years I used to wake up my daughter and say, ‘Melissa you ripped me to shreds. Now go back to sleep.’ Joan Rivers
65,388. My obstetrician was so dumb that when I gave birth he forgot to cut the cord. For a year that kid followed me everywhere. It was like having a dog on a leash. Joan Rivers
I’m not saying my mother didn’t like me, but she kept looking for loopholes in my birth certificate. Les Dawson
Your birth is a mistake you’ll spend your whole life trying to correct. Chuck Palahniuk
Childbirth could be life-threatening. What treatment there was had to be paid for by the patient. Robert Winston: Time Shift: Health Before the NHS: The Road to Recovery, BBC 2012
More than 150/1000 would die before their first birthday. ibid.
The moment of birth was an obvious place to start. ibid.
Pregnancy and childbirth was still a major threat to their lives. ibid.
This is the story of the making of you ... The beginnings of life: eight crucial and perilous weeks. Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You, BBC 2015
The amount of green veg you eat during that critical period around the time of conception can have a significant impact on the rest of your life. ibid.
Just one in every ten thousand people have organs that have ended up on the wrong side. ibid.
One of a tiny handful of people who are born without fingerprints. Michael Mosley, Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You II
So how did we all end up with such different immune systems? ibid.
One in ten thousand of us is transgender. ibid.
I think I was 5 foot 9 inches at birth. Peter Crouch
Since the lockdown began almost a quarter of a million babies have been born in the UK. I’ve come to Bradford to spend a week on the front-line of a maternity unit finding out how the pandemic has hit pregnancy and birth. Panorama: Stacey Dooley & the Lockdown Babies, BBC 2020
What is the new normal for babies born in 2020? ibid.
This is Bradford Royal Infirmary. Over 5,500 babies are born here every year. But over the last few months maternity services have had to change radically to keep women and children safe. ibid.
‘It just never occurred to me that I would be going in with a healthy baby and she would end up fighting for her life.’ Panorama: Maternity Scandal: Fighting for the Truth, mother, BBC 2022
It’s one of the biggest scandals in the history of the NHS. Babies who should have been perfectly healthy suffered permanent harm or died. Failure after failure over two decades … and the families forced to fight to uncover the truth. ibid.
What happened at Morecambe Bay should have led to improvements of maternity services across the UK. Poor care had contributed to the deaths of eleven babies and a mother at Furness General Hospital. An enquiry in 2015 found a dysfunctional maternity unit and heard about an overemphasis on normal birth at any cost. ibid.