Lamaze: An International History (Oxford Studies in International History) [Kindle Edition] Author: Paula A. Michaels | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I2QCG4C | Format: PDF, EPUB
Lamaze: An International History
Download books file now Lamaze: An International History from with Mediafire Link Download Link 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 A. 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 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. Books with free ebook downloads available Lamaze: An International History (Oxford Studies in International History) [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 4706 KB
- Print Length: 256 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0199738645
- Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (February 20, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I2QCG4C
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #858,053 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Since the 1960s many women in Western industrialized countries--one of the most famous being the Duchess of Cambridge, if we are to believe reports--have eschewed anesthesia in favor of the Lamaze method--often confused with "natural childbirth"-- so that they could give birth fully awake and aware. But few women--if any--realized the Soviet origins of the Lamaze method until Paula Michaels discovered them. While based on solid scholarship in Russian, French, American, and British archives and libraries, the book is fast-paced, nicely illustrated, and dramatic. Paula Michaels moves the reader from one geographical location to another, providing vignettes of key players, their milieu and their interaction with each other. She details how shortages of pharmaceuticals and veneration of Pavlov's psychological theories combined with the need to replenish a population decimated by World War II gave rise to a birthing method in the Soviet Union that focused on exercise, breathing and massage. She recounts how Dr. Lamaze popularized the method in Paris, how it was exported to the United States--scrubbed of its Soviet origins due to the Cold War, how Lamaze advocates clashed with British physician Grantly Dick-Read who had developed "natural childbirth" in the 1930s, how the Pope diplomatically endorsed both Lamaze and Natural childbirth, the sad fates of Lamaze and Dick-Read, and finally, the irony of how the Lamaze method was abandoned in the Soviet Union and lost favor in France while retaining popularity and morphing into a cottage industry in the United States. In addition to shedding light on developments in birthing practices, this book provides insights into unknown aspects of the Cold War and information on medical and pharmaceutical practices min various countries as well as the nuances of national cultures.
By Mary Schaeffer Conroy
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