When woman first heard about the term “Natural Birth”, they thought that it was such a crazy thing to think about. Who would want to endure all of the pain and suffering of childbirth? Not woman in the 1950’s. Although the French film wasn’t exactly the first time woman heard of natural birth, they reacted as if it were. Of course, there were people who were all for the idea of childbirth for many reasons. But the real question everyone thought about was, “ Is natural birth better than a non- natural birth?”.
Since woman in the 1900’s were, for the most part, left behind in advancements in the process of childbirth, they had to come up with a way to prepare themselves for it. So they started to come up with small groups where they would talk about the best habits and things to do before and after giving birth. Some advice was to “to relax muscles through exercise, some through meditation, some through religion” (pg.111) Of course woman took this advice to ease the pain as much as possible. Since the pain alone felt as if they were going to die. Woman took as many productions and as much advice as possible. Soon enough, natural childbirth was the “natural” thing to do. The next thing to come around was to let Dr. Lamaze deliver the
babies, since he was trusted by many people and made the women feel as comfortable as possible. Given that they would have no medication while giving birth.
As if natural child birth wasn’t enough for women, they decided to take it a step further. If you thought fear was a big thing in our world, imagine it in the world of motherhood. Bringing a life into this world was such a big thing because it was so hard to do, and not many woman wanted to do it because of the fear and pain it brought. I mean, who would voluntarily do something that involves pain, fear, and with the lack of full medical knowledge at the time, death? Now you can understand why it was a big deal when Dr. Dick-Read brought up the topic of childbirth without fear. People everywhere were all over the thought of not being afraid to give birth! They loved it. Of course, everything has a downside, and this topic put midwives “out of business”. “Unlike the english, who began to train nurses for midwifery, American doctors tried to get them off the playing field altogether” (pg.115). See, the downside.
Looking at all of the hassle that doctors went through to advance in t
he medical aspect of childbirth is kind of confusing. Not only that, but the woman seemed to never happy with the small advancements that came along. Trying to figure out ways to make woman feel comfortable and at the same time finding out ways to better the baby, seems like a lot to take on. Not only that, but the people who discovered new information were the group of people who have no idea what childbirth feels like; men. I guess that was norma
l for them at the time, but I still think that if they gave a woman the chance to help out, they would have advanced a little faster than they did. Still, the advancements were indeed incredible and I appreciate all that has happened since, the doctors mentioned above and many more have made remarkable discoveries.
StarPathDesign 
Hey Karla!
Your post was super easy to follow and understand. I do agree with you, that had women been given a chance to help out with giving birth and not just giving advice, the advancement in child delivery would be much greater. And I still do find it astonishing that men, even in the 1950’s, were writing books about childbirth when they only knew the scientific aspect of it. While that aspect of childbirth is very important, so is the experience and I think that if women were more than just midwives then maybe we would be way past this stage in giving birth. Can’t wait to see what you write next! – Enalisa B.
First of all, thank you so much for commenting your opinions on my post! Coming back to this post right now has made me come up with new thoughts about women just being midwives. For example, why didnt women step up to the plate when they knew that the men were trying to take over? Over time, what was the first step to women taking back their rightful position in child birth delivery? As you can see my questions range from in the past to the present. I look foward to researching information on my own to find answers.