ABSTRACT
This book discusses many aspects of fetuses and motherhood from fields as wide as sociology and medicine. It examines changing perceptions of the fetus over recent decades, comparing western ideas with those of non-western countries;examining maternal mental health during COVID-19 and charting the ascent of the 'fetus' to a cult phenomenon, which has currently reappeared in the courts. This work, given its multifaceted approach, will be of interest to a varied and wide range of people, from parents to doctors and nurses, to anthropologists and ethnologists, to scientists, to students of various disciplines, to psychologists and psychoanalysts, to lawyers dealing with the topic and to a general public simply interested in these fundamental themes. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.