Maggie Shannon’s book Extreme Pain, Extreme Joy is out!

It is a deeply personal exploration of birthing bodies, celebrating childbirth as both extraordinary and profoundly human. The project began as an award-winning photo series documenting midwife-led home births during the 2020 lockdown and has now been reimagined in book form. It features a foreword by Angela Garbes and an artist Q&A with Gem Fletcher.

Through these intimate and candid photographs, Maggie aims to capture the raw realities of birth—the exhaustion, pain, relief, and transformation—and offer a timeless meditation on this fundamental human experience.