In matters concerning pregnancy, childbearing and parenting, women are ruled by experts who try to impose their point of view by means of supposedly practical advice. And yet, from one generation to the next, those experts often contradict one another on issues as varied as breast-feeding, clothing, the use of a dummy, the presence of the mother, or of the father, and the role played by child carers. How can one make sense of all this? Whom should we believe? Whose advice should be followed?

Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval is a psychoanalyst and a specialist in questions of fertility and filiation. She is the author of Enfant de Personne and La Part de la Mère.

Suzanne Lallemand, an anthropologist and research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), has studied child care issues in non-industrialised societies.