The Sounds and Sights of Natural Childbirth: Films and Records in Antenatal Preparation Classes, 1950s-1980s

Film and sound recordings are a ubiquitous part of the antenatal preparation courses that serve as a rite of passage to parenthood in Western Europe and North America. This article analyses a sample of these didactic tools used in classes from the 1950s to the 1980s, the heyday of the natural childbirth movement. These audio-visual artefacts both reflected and conditioned expectations for women's behaviour during labour and birth through their representation of pain. They demonstrate changing norms in the role of the father, but show how physician authority-and male authority more broadly-remained largely unchallenged. Two phases are discernable in these sources. From the 1950s through the mid-1960s, natural childbirth was presented as essentially painless. From the late 1960s through the 1980s, pain and effort in labour and birth found graphic representation on the screen, reflecting a shift in what was considered a desirable birth experience and what natural childbirth preparation could accomplish.

Childbirth and Trauma, 1940s-1980s

This article analyzes trauma in mid-twentieth century hospital births, focusing on the United States, but with additional evidence drawn from Great Britain and France. As many as half of women today experience childbirth as traumatic and no evidence suggests that the figure was lower a half-century ago. Drawing on women's birth narratives and psychiatric literature, this article highlights the striking consistency over time in how women describe their experiences of traumatic birth. By the 1970s, however, women proved less ready to accept their trauma as the product of their own psychological shortcomings. Under the sway of second-wave feminism, they pushed back against care they defined as inhumane in both conventional maternity care and in natural childbirth. Psychiatry too demonstrates change over time. Hegemonic at midcentury, Freudian thinking began to yield to critiques that questioned gender norms and the preeminence of the subconscious. Based on private letters to maternity caregivers and between physicians, as well as a wide array of medical journal articles, popular magazines, and newsletters from childbirth education and birth advocacy organizations, this article argues that, despite different approaches to trauma in birth and clarity about how best to minimize it, contemporary maternity care has to date proven unable to heed the lessons of history.

A chapter from lamaze history: birth narratives and authoritative knowledge in france, 1952-1957

THIS ARTICLE ANALYZES BIRTH NARRATIVES GATHERED DURING WHAT CAN BE CONSIDERED A FORMATIVE PERIOD OF THE LAMAZE MOVEMENT IN THE WEST: from 1952 through Fernand Lamaze's death in early 1957. The use of women's birth narratives as an assessment tool is one of Dr. Lamaze's most enduring contributions to obstetric pain management. The early work of Lamaze and his collaborator Pierre Vellay provided a template for studies conducted elsewhere for decades to come. By examining expectations in another time and place, our own standards, so often normalized to the point of invisibility, are thrown into sharp relief. This article addresses the conflicting and contested nature of authoritative knowledge surrounding parturition.