Mother's Part / La Part de la mère

In "La Part du père" (The Paternal Part), Geneviève Dalaisi analysed the physical and psychological realities of being a father. She todays comes back to her favorite theme: that of "manufacturing" and of "bringing up" babies. She here completes the cycle by treating the maternal condition.Through her clinical practice in a hospital service of gynecology and obstetrics, Geneviève Delaisi hears on a daily basis, the stories (sometimes incredible) of mothers and of parents whose lives unfold before her eyes: a mix of reality, truth and current events whose meanings she here investigates. All constitute the basis for the mythology of maternity.The Maternal Part is thus an account made up of about thirty of these stories, real clinical "news" in a place which operates both as a gigantic clock and a formidible revelator of our society. This brings Geneviève Delaisi to think about the way that the phenomen of exclusion can be considered as pertaining to women; and put forth the hypothesis that in certain cases, it is actually the mothers who are the real proletarians in our modern times; about the consequences of prenatal diagnosis that can lead to abortions, or again, about the specificity of perinatal mourning (what kied of mourning is necessary for parents who lose a baby in utero, before its birth ?)An account about maternity which is both poignant and stimulating treated by the medical and the legal fields.Geneviève Delaisi is a psychoanalyst and in 1994, published with Editions Odile Jacob Enfant de personne (Nobody's child).