Books > History > World history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
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Lamaze - An International History (Hardcover, New)
Loot Price: R1,810
Discovery Miles 18 100
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Lamaze - An International History (Hardcover, New)
Series: Oxford Studies in International History
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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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.
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