“How was it in Mummy's tummy?”: Japanese pregnancy literature

Abstract

Synopsis This article aims at a textual analysis of contemporary Japanese pregnancy guides. The books are selected according to their popularity in the Japanese market. Two major genres within this literature are identified: guidebooks purporting to offer authoritative medical advice and “taikyo” literature, promoting prenatal bonding between the mother and child. I argue that the “medical” literature systematically disempowers women by withholding information and portraying pregnancy as an abnormal state that requires constant expert intervention. Taikyo manuals, in contrast, describe childbirth as a spiritual and fantastical state. The foetus is imagined to have supernatural communication and surveillance powers but also to be vulnerable. These two tendencies in the literature are seen as complementary to each other. In Japanese pregnancy literature, pregnancy is redefined as a fantastical enterprise rather than a physical reality and yet, even in this alternative sphere, the mother is under surveillance and control.