Je Ne Suis Pas Enceinte

I AM NOT PREGNANT An inquiry on the denial of pregnancyHow can women possibly ignore that they are pregnant until the moment of birth ? How can the people they live with not know it either? How comes that these women sometimes go so far as to commit infanticide? One must not think that this strange phenomenon only concerns women in a bad psychological shape: the denial of pregnancy can occur to every woman, every couple (from one to three cases per thousand births, which means more than the risk to give birth to a child with Down syndrome).The phenomenon is paradoxical for a society like ours which worships the pregnant woman, sacralises maternity, scrutinizes pregnancy from fertilization to delivery and tends towards total control of fertility.The author of this inquiry has done research on this phenomenon for three years. She has met women who are concerned by this problem, doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers.Gaëlle Guernalec-Lévy is a journalist at Parents magazine, after working with France Soir and DS. This is her first book.