Pregnancy and Gestation in Chinese Classical Texts

Plot

This book presents the various transformations which occur within the mother and developing baby during pregnancy. It begins with Suwen chapter 1, which describes the unfolding of female fertility, Elisabeth then gives a month-by-month description of pregnancy, drawing specifically on the Zhubing Yuanhou Lun, the Mawangdui Manuscript and Sun Simiao. Two later texts, the Qipolun and the Luxingjing, are particularly interesting because they present alternative and more unusual images of the developing fetus, and speak of the presence of the spirits (hun, po and shen) in the fetus.