The different and sometimes competing cultural scripts that shape ways of knowing about reproduction and childbirth in different cultural contexts were powerfully demonstrated to me at the time of the birth of my first daughter. During the 1980s I had lived in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, for two and a half years. I worked at a children's hospital and spent time in the ‘bustees’, the urban slums. My job involved tracing former inpatients of the hospital in order to assess their nutritional status. Following an eventful pregnancy (see Introduction) I returned home to England for the birth of my first child. The morning after my daughter was born in the local National Health Service hospital, I was aware of a commotion in the next bed. The new mother, by coincidence a young Bangladeshi woman, was in a state of bewilderment. The two auxiliary nurses she was appealing to had failed with sign language and were looking slightly bemused. I was able to interpret for her; she was in pain and thirsty.