The time around childbirth is clearly one of immense biological upheaval, including rapid and sustained alteration in the endocrine environment (sudden increases in prolactin and decreases in oestrogens and progestagens - hormones associated with reproduction), culminating in a period of physical ordeal not unlike a major illness, with the threat of illness and even death for mother and child.

The arrival of a child, particularly the first, is not only a major change in a woman's lifestyle, in terms of altered roles and social networks, but also may bring to the surface dormant conflicts related to her own childhood so many years ago and is therefore a potent symbolic event.