In her book “Round 40 Weeks. Human Pregnancy and 81 Other Ways to Have a Baby,” Norwegian biologist Anna Blix writes about sex, birth and care work – and her dream of a kangaroo pouch.
Woman BlixIn your book you compare your own pregnancy with that of 81 animal species: What is your conclusion – do human females have unusual pregnancies?
Yes, human pregnancy is probably the hardest. Just because of how long it lasts. Rabbits give birth to small, almost perfect babies after just five weeks and only need to nurse them twice a day. When I was pregnant, I dreamed of laying an egg and then walking away, or giving birth to a bean-sized embryo that I could put in a sac instead of my uterus. Today I know that it wouldn’t have been that easy either.