1. Introduction2. Medicalized Childbirth and Natural Childbirth3. The Soviet Method, 1936-514. "Science Knows No Borders": Psychoprophylaxis in France, 1951-565. "Passionate Controversies": Conflict and Change in Psychoprophylaxis across Europe in the 1950s6. Lamaze Goes Global, 1957-677. American Gains and Global Decline, 1968-808. Epilogue: Revolution or Cooptation?
Paula A. Michaels teaches history and international studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and is the author of Curative Powers: Medicine and Empire in Stalin's Central Asia.
"Michaels has managed the enviable feat of producing a
comprehensive scholarly review that is both accessible and
engaging. She draws on the disciplines of sociology, psychology,
and political science to situate the startling history of Lamaze
within the political imperatives of the postwar Soviet Union,
France, and the United States...Lamaze: An International History is
an excellent example of interdisciplinary history, situating
historical facts
within the sociological and political framework of each time and
culture in which it became established."--Journal of
Interdisciplinary History
"Lamaze may be a household word in the United States but few if any
of the many pregnant women who have used the technique know its
surprising international history. Originating in the Soviet Union
during the Cold War, subsequently enjoying a temporary popularity
in France, the Lamaze method found an enduring home only in the
United States. Paula Michaels explains why. In recognizing that
medicine is far from a dispassionate science and that the
political,
economic, and cultural institutions within countries constantly
shape and reshape medical practice, Michaels brings to life the
fascinating history of a childbirth preparation method that
transformed the
attitudes of multiple generations of women toward giving
birth."--Jacqueline H. Wolf, author of Deliver Me from Pain:
Anesthesia and Birth in America
"A compellingly written history of an enormously popular method of
childbirth, this narrative takes readers from the city of Kharkov
in the 1930s, to Paris in the 1950s, and finally to the United
States up into the 1970s. How this method traveled across borders
and even the Iron Curtain is remarkable and beautifully conveyed
here. Perhaps even more extraordinary is the fact that a process
promoted by Stalin and his supporters could come to symbolize
American
women's liberation in the 1970s. While a work of history of
medicine, this is also clearly a transnational history, a social
history, a political history, and an intellectual history."--Wendy
Kline,
author of Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women's
Health in the Second Wave
"In her superb history of the Lamaze - or more accurately, the
psychoprophylactic - technique, Paula Michaels shows how
transformations in the management of childbirth also mediated the
international and domestic rivalries of Cold War
politics...Michaels has succeeded in producing an innovative,
refreshing and insightful book."--Reviews in History
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