In search of the maternal body -- The tyrannical womb and the disappearing mother: the maternal body in medical literature -- Writing the body: the work of the body in women's childbearing narratives -- The highest pleasure of which woman's nature is capable: breastfeeding and the emergence of the sentimental mother -- Good mothers and wet nurses: breastfeeding and the fracturing of sentimental motherhood -- The fantasy of the transcendent mother: the disembodiment of the mother in popular feminine print culture -- Imagining the slave mother: sentimentalism and embodiment in antislavery print culture -- In search of the maternal body past and present.