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Author Michaels, Paula A., 1966-

Title Lamaze : an international history / Paula A. Michaels.

Publication Info. Oxford : Oxford University Press, USA, [2014]

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xv, 240 pages) : illustrations.
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Series Oxford studies in international history
Oxford studies in international history.
Summary "The Lamaze method is virtually synonymous with natural childbirth in America. In the 1970s, taking Lamaze classes was a common rite of passage to parenthood. The conscious relaxation and patterned breathing techniques touted as a natural and empowering path to the alleviation of pain in childbirth resonated with the feminist and countercultural values of the era. In Lamaze, historian Paula Michaels tells the surprising story of the Lamaze method from its origins in the Soviet Union in the 1940s, to its popularization in France in the 1950s, and then to its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Michaels shows how, for different reasons, in disparate national contexts, this technique for managing the pain of childbirth without resort to drugs found a following. The Soviet government embraced this method as a panacea to childbirth pain in the face of the material and fiscal shortages that followed World War II. Heated and sometimes ideologically inflected debates surrounded the Lamaze method as it moved from East to West amid the Cold War. Physicians in France sympathetic to the communist cause helped to export it across the Iron Curtain, but politics alone fails to explain why French women embraced this approach. Arriving on American shores around 1960, the Lamaze method took on new meanings. Initially it offered a path to a safer and more satisfying birth experience, but overtly political considerations came to the fore once again as feminists appropriated it as a way to resist the patriarchal authority of male obstetricians. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Michaels pieces together this complex and fascinating story at the crossroads of the history of politics, medicine, and women. The story of Lamaze illuminates the many contentious issues that swirl around birthing practices in America and Europe. Brimming with insight, Michaels' engaging history offers an instructive intervention in the debate about how to achieve humane, empowering, and safe maternity care for all women"-- Provided by publisher.
"Advocated as the oldest, most natural method of childbirth, Lamaze is a practice involving breathing techniques that help a woman work through contractions (psychoprophylaxis). It has been omnipresent in American culture since the 1970s, advocated by the medical community and mothers alike. While it would seem that it emerged from the back-to-the-earth culture of the 1960s and 1970s, Paula Michaels in this book reveals a shocking history: the Lamaze method was actually invented in the Cold War Soviet Union. Michaels discovers that a French obstetrician, Fernand Lamaze, saw the technique being used in Russia in the 1950s and brought it back to his maternity ward in Paris. In order to make the method more appealing to Americans, early U.S. advocates hid its Soviet origins and were able to spread it as a grassroots movement. This work involving multiple languages and archives in a range of nations promises to be eye-opening for scholars, the medical community, and general readers alike. In setting the practice of Lamaze into its context, it will shed light on the history of medicine, the history of feminism, and Cold War history"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Cover; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations and Acronyms; Translation of Foreign Terms; Introduction; 1. Medicalized Childbirth and Natural Childbirth; 2. The Soviet Method, 1936-51; 3. "Science Knows No Borders": Psychoprophylaxis in France, 1951-56; 4. "Passionate Controversies": Conflict and Change across Europe in the 1950s; 5. Lamaze Goes Global, 1957-67; 6. American Gains and Global Decline, 1968-80; 7. Revolution or Cooptation?; Notes; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Lamaze, Fernand, 1890-1957.
Lamaze, Fernand, 1890-1957.
Natural childbirth.
Natural childbirth.
Natural childbirth -- Cross-cultural studies.
Genre/Form Cross-cultural studies.
Electronic books.
Other Form: Print version: Michaels, Paula A., 1966- Lamaze 9780199738649 (DLC) 2013042938 (OCoLC)840803655
ISBN 9780199377497 (electronic book)
0199377499 (electronic book)
9780199377503
0199377502
9780199738649
0199738645