DOCSLIB.ORG

The Historical Development of Obstetric Anesthesia and Its Contributions to Perinatology

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Historical Development of Obstetric Anesthesia and Its Contributions to Perinatology Review Article The Historical Development of Obstetric Anesthesia and Its Contributions to Perinatology Matthew L. Edwards, AB1 Anwar D. Jackson, MD2 1 School of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Address for correspondence Matthew L. Edwards, AB, 301 University Galveston, Texas Boulevard, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, School of 2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Michigan State University Medicine, Galveston, TX 77555 (e-mail: [email protected]). College of Human Medicine, Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Michigan Am J Perinatol Abstract Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson first introduced the use of ether and Keywords chloroform anesthesia for labor in 1847, just 1 year after William Morton’s first ► obstetric anesthesia successful public demonstration of ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General ► perinatology Hospital. The contemporaneous development of surgical anesthesia and obstetrics ► drugs enabled obstetric anesthesia to address the pain of childbirth. Shortly after its ► placental transport introduction, obstetricians raised concerns regarding placental transport, or the idea ► Virginia Apgar that drugs not only crossed the placenta, but exerted detrimental effects on the ► James Young Simpson neonate. The development of regional anesthesia and clinical work in obstetric ► history anesthesia and perinatology addressed issues of the safety of the neonate, enabling ► regional anesthesia obstetric anesthesia to safely and dramatically reduce the pain of childbirth. ► twilight sleep It is remarkable that Boston dentist William T. G. Morton Obstetric Anesthesia and Concepts of (1819–1868) gave the first successful public demonstration of Placental Transport ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846, several centuries after the discovery of ether. Certainly, At a time when 6 out of every 100 British mothers died during ether and other anesthetic agents have expanded the bound- childbirth, and even more suffered complications from the aries of surgery, aided the process of childbirth, and codified event, the development of obstetrics promised to increase the Downloaded by: Cornell. Copyrighted material. the medical treatment of pain. By 1847, just 1 year after safety of women and children during the perinatal period.4 Morton’ssuccessfuldemonstration,Scottishobstetrician Relatedly, James Young Simpson believed that mitigating the James Young Simpson (1811–1870) first introduced the use pain of childbirth was necessary for improving its safety.5 One of ether and chloroform anesthesia for labor.1–3 of Simpson’speersdescribedhimashavingthe“head of Jove” This article reviews the history of obstetric anesthesia and the and the “body of Bacchus,” while others described him as social responses to the management of pain during childbirth. gregarious and charming.6 Although these characteristics no Drawing on the historical and medical literatures between the doubt enabled him to advocate for the use of anesthesia mid-19th and 20th centuries, we discuss the major agents, during labor, the public had other reasons to adopt the use achievements and figures in obstetric anesthesia. Of particular of gases in labor. importance to perinatology, we also discuss the effect of the Feminism emerged during the mid-19th century and development of ideas about drugs in general (and anesthetics in many of its proponents believed that the pain of repetitive particular) on the neonate, ideas which arose among obstetri- childbirth was largely responsible for propagating the cians around 1880. Clinical work with the neonate came rather oppression of women.6,7 Leading feminists shared Simpson’s late in the history of obstetric anesthesia, in part from the work of desire for medical advancement and transmogrified it into anesthesiologist Virginia Apgar (1909–1974). the quest for female empowerment.1 While early recipients of received Copyright © by Thieme Medical DOI http://dx.doi.org/ May 10, 2016 Publishers, Inc., 333 Seventh Avenue, 10.1055/s-0036-1585409. accepted after revision New York, NY 10001, USA. ISSN 0735-1631. June 5, 2016 Tel: +1(212) 584-4662. History of Obstetric Anesthesia Edwards et al. ether and chloroform included Emma Darwin (1808–1896) in 1834. Conversely, W. S. Savory found that strychnine (the wife of Charles Darwin [1809–1882]) and Queen Victoria injected into the fetal dogs’ circulation subsequently caused (1819–1901),8 these agents were generally out of reach for the mothers to convulse. In 1850, obstetrician C. C. Hüter the average laboring woman. Cognizant of this disparity, devised a chemical test that identified chloroform in neonatal philanthropists helped establish the National Birthday Trust cord blood. in 1928. The trust was an organization dedicated to making Nearly a quarter-century passed before the issue of placen- anesthesia available to every laboring woman in the British tal transport was resumed in 1876, however, when the Swiss Isles.1 By the turn of the 20th century, ether and chloroform obstetrician Paul Zweifel (1848–1927) demonstrated that were ubiquitous in childbirth on both sides of the Atlantic chloroform used in labor accumulated significantly in the fetal Ocean, and James Simpson was regarded in Europe as one of blood and urine.1,7,8 This third-generation physician who the era’smostinfluential physicians.6 pioneered the study of fetal-placental metabolism found a While Simpson gained fame and notoriety in the eyes of synthetic reducing agent in the urine of infants whose mothers the British public, his medical contemporaries in Europe and were treated with chloroform anesthesia for labor.1,9 Zweifel North America approached ether and chloroform with heavy believed that this metabolic “reaction resembled that pro- skepticism.6,8 Many British obstetricians argued that ether, a duced by glucose1” and hypothesized that chloroform altered volatile gas whose medical applications had only been dem- the fetal metabolism of carbohydrates.1 Using placental tissue, onstrated months before Simpson used it in childbirth, had he determined that the substance was not glucose, but rather unproven safety and efficacy in labor. The British medical chloroform.1 Fellow physicians and scientists questioned the establishment feared ether and chloroform not only significance of his study, however, arguing that the chloroform increased the risk of hemorrhage and infection, but also present in placental tissue might represent “contamination by had detrimental effects on the newborn.8 These criticisms maternal blood adherent to the placental membranes.”1 Zwei- were among the earliest expressing concerns about the fel used the same chemical reaction to demonstrate chloro- placental transport of drugs from mother to fetus. form in the umbilical artery and neonatal urine.1,9 His findings Some physicians feared that a drug strong enough to definitively proved that ether and chloroform quickly crossed sedate an adult would have even greater effects on neonates. the placenta. To be sure, Zweifel only demonstrated placental Simpson himself had experienced the potency of chloroform, transport; he did not test for the amount of drug that was and it was only after this experience that he became con- transported, or its effects on the neonate. vinced of chloroform’sanestheticsuperiorityandintroduced Issues of placental transport were not the only challenges it into his obstetric practice.5 Without extensive data, how- to obstetric anesthesia during Simpson’stime.Whenanes- ever, fears regarding the effects of chloroform on neonates thesia began to shape obstetrics in the mid-19th century, were nothing more than unproven suspicions. As the use of religious opposition became a formidable challenge.10 Resis- ether and chloroform became more widespread in labor, the tance became so strong that Simpson and another London complications of their use also became better known. John obstetrician Protheroe Smith (1809–1889), had to address the Snow (1813–1858), a British general practitioner who anes- issue of religion and obstetric anesthesia in publications by thetized Queen Victoria during the birth of her eighth child, arguing that the scriptural text “in sorrow thou shalt bring also expressed concerns about ether and chloroform.8 Snow forth children” was not congruent with the idea of intended Downloaded by: Cornell. Copyrighted material. noticed that neonates born to mothers who had received suffering of women during childbirth, and that moreover, the ether in labor came out with respiratory depression and pain experienced during childbirth could be directly decreased motor activity.8,9 Snow also smelled ether on the explained by anatomy and science rather than punishment breath of these neonates,8 thus supporting the idea of intra- from God.1 Simpson’s1847publicationcoincidedwithQueen uterine transport of the drug. Victoria’swillingnesstohaveetherasamedicalanestheticin In spite of mounting evidence about ether and chloro- her two subsequent births.1 form’seffectsonnewborns,ferventproponentsoflabor analgesia continued to dismiss their colleagues’ clinical find- 1 The Emergence of Twilight Sleep and ings. Walter Channing (1786–1876), a Harvard professor and Regional Anesthesia obstetrician, was one such proponent. A leading physician who cofounded the predecessor of the Brigham and Women’s Simpson was not indifferent to the effects of ether and Hospital in Boston, MA, Channing asserted that ether did not chloroform on newborns. He died in 1870, six years before cross the placenta.8
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Twilight Sleep)
    r c E X LIBRIS - I :I a ML WOOD Property .F LIBRARY This Accession is part of the BOOK COLLECTION of The WOOD LIBRARY-MUSEUM OF ANESTHESIOLOGY, Inc. 195 Acknowledgment is made to donor Property of Accession ... .. ... .. ... .... SIr AMNESIA AID ANALGESIA IN PARTURITION (TWILIGHT SLEEP) AMNESIA AND ANALGESIA IN PARTURITION (TWILIGHT SLEEP) BY ALFRED M. HELLMAN, B.A., M.D., F.A.C.S. ADJUNCT ATTENDING GYNECOLOGIST AND OBSTETRICIAN LEBANON HOSPITAL, ATTENDING GYNECOLOGIST GERMAN HOSPITAL DISPENSARY, FELLOW NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, ETC., ETC. NEW YORK PAUL B. HOEBER 1915 WOOD LIBRAAY-MUSEUM Accession. o r. .......... Copyright, 1915, BY PAUL B. HOEBER Published July, 1915 Printed in the United States of America AUTHOR'S NOTE IT is a great pleasure to have this oppor- tunity to thank the German clinicians for their unfailing courtesy, and my attending physician, Dr. Gustav Seeligmann, for his kindness in allowing me to use the obstet- rical material at the Lebanon Hospital. I desire to express my appreciation to the authorities of that institution and to its house staff and nurses for their assistance. Special thanks are due to Mr. Paul B. Hoeber, at whose request this book was written, for his help and many suggestions. ALFRED M. HELLMAN. 2 WEST 86TH STREET, NEW YORK. June, 1915. INTRODUCTION Tins little monograph had its origin in the desire of many of the author's medical friends to obtain a clear conception of the much discussed "Twilight Sleep." They seem to require a presentation of all the facts in one small book, as they have not the time to delve into the more than one hundred volumes that contain information on the subject.
    [Show full text]
  • Trends in Midwifery in the United States
    TRENDS IN MIDWIFERY !IN THE UNITED STATES ! ! By! ! ! Alexandra !P. Alvarez Advised! by Dr. Dawn! Neill ! ! ANT 461,! 462 Senior !Project Social Sciences! Department College of Liberal! Arts California Polytechnic! State University Winter,! 2014 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Table of Contents Research Proposal…………………………………………………… P. i Annotated Bibliographies…………………………………………… P. ii Outline. ……………………………………………………………….P. xii Abstract……………………………………………………………… P. 1 Introduction………………………………………………………….. P. 2 A Brief History of Midwives in the United States…………………. P. 4 A Brief History of Medical Interventions…………………………. P. 7 Midwifery and Hospital Births Today in the United States……….P. 13 Conclusion..…………………………………………………………..P. 22 References……………………………………………………………P. 24 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Alvarez i Research Proposal! ! Midwives are becoming more popular in recent years, and a rising percentage of women have been choosing midwives over doctors. Originally midwives were mostly used by minority women, but now more caucasian women are finding midwives to be a natural and preferable way to give birth. Due to this change in trend, midwives are becoming more accepted in society. The intent of this project is to research and define the reasons behind the changing trends of midwifery in the United States. Specifically, if this changing trend has to deal with interventions, such as pitocin or cesarean sections, by doctors to speed up the delivery process. This will be achieved through the review of the literature on midwives and hospital births, as well as viewing documentaries pertaining to home births and hospital births. I hope to find a pattern among my research that will bring to light the reasons for this changing trend in birth. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Alvarez ii Annotated Bibliographies Rochman, B. (2012, June 25). Midwife mania? more u.s.
    [Show full text]
  • “TO GO on DOING BABBITTS”: RECONTEXTUALIZING TWILIGHT SLEEP AS LEWISIAN SATIRE by SARAH JEANNE SCHAITKIN a Thesis Submitted
    “TO GO ON DOING BABBITTS”: RECONTEXTUALIZING TWILIGHT SLEEP AS LEWISIAN SATIRE BY SARAH JEANNE SCHAITKIN A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS English December 2013 Winston Salem, North Carolina Approved By: Barry Maine, Ph.D., Advisor Erica Still, Ph.D., Chair Rian Bowie, Ph.D. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are so many people to whom I owe my sincerest gratitude, for without their support I would not have been able to undertake this project and complete this degree. First and foremost, I would like to thank my dad for his constant support, encouragement, and love. Without his upbeat texts and calls I would long since have given up. Thank you to Tom Lambert, for loving me, believing in me, and taking a genuine interest in my work. Thank you to my advisor, Barry Maine, for giving me both constructive feedback and the space to work independently. Thank you to my friends and family for keeping me abreast of happenings outside my own work-bubble and for listening to me as I doubted myself and hit my limit. Thank you to Nicole Fitzpatrick for being my escape from work and for rarely saying no to takeout. A special thank you to my roommate and constant companion, Katie Williams, for being both my playmate and academic confidante. I shudder to think about what this process would have been like without you (and our signature snack—pizza rolls). ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.
    [Show full text]
  • View / Open Adkins Carrie Pauline Ma2010sp
    MORE PERFECT WOMEN, MORE PERFECT MEDICINE: WOMEN AND THE EVOLUTION OF OBSTETRICS AND GThTECOLOGY, 1880-1920 by CARRIE PAULThTE ADKINS A THESIS Presented to the Department ofHistory and the Graduate School ofthe University of Oregon in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the degree of Master ofArts June 2010 11 "More Perfect Women, More Perfect Medicine: Women and the Evolution ofObstetrics and Gynecology, 1880-1920," a thesis prepared by Carrie Pauline Adkins in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the Master ofArts degree in the Department of History. This thesis has been approved and accepted by: Dr. Ellen Hermin, Chair ofthe Examining Committee Committee in Charge: Dr. Ellen Herman, Chair Dr. James Mohr Dr. Peggy Pascoe Accepted by: Dean ofthe Graduate School III © 2010 Carrie Pauline Adkins IV An Abstract ofthe Thesis of Carrie Pauline Adkins for the degree of Master ofArts in the Department ofHistory to be taken June 2010 Title: MORE PERFECT WOMEN, MORE PERFECT MEDICINE: WOMEN AND THE EVOLUTION OF OBSTETRICS AND GY1\fECOLOGY, 1880-1920 Approved: _d Dr. Ellen Herman This thesis argues that women were instrumental in creating the period of transformation that took place in American obstetrics and gynecology during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Historians have emphasized the ways that male physicians victimized female patients, but in the academic, professional, and public worlds, women directly influenced these specialties. As intellectuals and educators, women challenged existing ideas about their presence in academia and shaped evolving medical school curricula. As specialists, they debated the ethics ofoperative gynecology and participated in the medical construction ofthe female body.
    [Show full text]
  • Icjusi the Following Observations on 140 Oases - 63 Primiparae and 77 Multiparas - of Morphia-Scopolamine Treatment, Were Carried out in the Royal Maternity And
    THE "STAHDARDISED-DOSAGE" METHOD OF USIHG SQOPOLAMIHE-MORPHINE DURING LABOUR. fey N. HIRSGHMAN, M.B., Ch.B. Thesis for the Degree of M.D. ICjUSi The following observations on 140 oases - 63 primiparae and 77 multiparas - of morphia-scopolamine treatment, were carried out in the Royal Maternity and Simpson Memorial Hospital, Edinburgh, in 1917. I have to thank my chief, Dr J.W. Ballantyne, for kindly giving me the scope and■allowing me to make use of the material in his term of office. I also have to thank him as well as Dr 0. Nicholson for their interest a,nd encouragement while these observations were made. We know that scopolamine as an anaesthetic or an adjuvant of other anaesthetics in surgery, originated with Schneidern in 1899. It was not however, until 1902 that von Stenbuchel reported his employment of it for a similar purpose in labour, and not until Kronig, Gauss, Bios, Kerff, and others published their results, was any widespread attention drawn to this usage of morphine and scopolamine. It is to Gauss, as we know, that the phrase "Dammerschlaf", ("Twilight Sleep") is due. To him also is due the "memory test". There are some who say that, any method followed apart from Gauss's Memory Test, is not really Twilight Sleep. For convenience sake, however, I shall make use of this term here and there. My criticisms and results will necessarily be based on facts, and not on any prejudice in favour of or against the use of the drugs or other methods. I shall in all probability be inclined to make my percentages of successes too ' small, through being over cautious, and allowing as a failure any doubtful result.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Citizenship, Twilight Sleep and the Early Birth Control Movement
    Original research Med Humanities: first published as 10.1136/medhum-2017-011419 on 28 September 2018. Downloaded from The politics of female pain: women’s citizenship, twilight sleep and the early birth control movement Lauren MacIvor Thompson1,2 1College of Law, Georgia State ABSTRact mine could roll off the soul of woman that dark University, Atlanta, Georgia, The medical intervention of ’twilight sleep’, or the use cloud, that nightmare, that false belief, that all her USA 2Department of History and of a scopolamine–morphine mixture to anaesthetise weaknesses and disabilities are natural, that her Political Science, Georgia State labouring women, caused a furore among doctors and sufferings in maternity are a punishment for the sins University Perimeter College – early 20th-century feminists. Suffragists and women’s of Adam and Eve, and teach her…that by obedi- Alpharetta Campus, Alpharetta, rights advocates led the Twilight Sleep Association in a ence to natural law she might secure uninterrupted Georgia, USA quest to encourage doctors and their female patients to health and happiness for herself…’1 widely embrace the practice. Activists felt the method Correspondence to Stanton’s words urged alteration to the institu- Dr. Lauren MacIvor Thompson, revolutionised the notoriously dangerous and painful tion of marriage to better reflect ‘the laws of the College of Law, Georgia State childbirth process for women, touting its benefits universe’ that held men and women as equals and University, Atlanta, GA 30302, as the key to allowing women to control their birth placed the concept of alleviating female pain—both USA; lmacivor1@ gsu. edu experience at a time when the maternal mortality rate psychic and physical—at the heart of women’s Accepted 3 September 2018 remained high despite medical advances in obstetrics.
    [Show full text]
  • Pain, Pleasure, and American Childbirth. from the Twilight Sleep to the Read Method, 1914
    NOTES emerged in the second decade of the twentieth 1. Bruno Ramirez, "French Canadian Immigrants in the New century. England Cotton Industry," Labour I.E TRAVA1LLEVR 11 (Spring 1983), p. 130). Twilight Sleep was "a state of semiconcious- 2. Mason, Vinovsksis and Hareven, "Women's Work," in Tran• ness induced by morphine and scopolamine." sitions, p. 209. 3. Bettina Bradbury, "Women and Wage Labour in a Period of (3) What it essentially did was to separate the Transition,'' Social History H1STOIRE SOC1ALE, 17. Mav mind/body link which had so dominated nine• 1984. teenth century medicine and which had ac• 1. Frances Early, "The French Canadian Family Economy," Journal of Family History, Sunimet 1982. p. 183. counted for female mental disorders. Twilight 5. Judith Mt Caw "A Good Place to Work," Journal of Interdis• Sleep continued to accept the nineteenth century ciplinary History, 10, 1979, p. 210. 6. Thomas Dublin, Review, Technology and Culture. 24 (Octo- belief in the efficacy of pain in the actual labour ber, 1983). stage of childbirth but after the birth, removed the memory of that pain. It was a procedure Pain, Pleasure, and American Childbirth. From demanded by patients and rejected by most the Twilight Sleep to the Read Method, 1914- American physicians. These patients, however, 1960. Margaret Sandelowski. Westport: Geen- were not trying to win back control over child• wood Press, 1984. Pp. xix, 152. birth or agitating for popular and safe medicine. As Sandelowski carefully points out, Twilight Pain, Pleasure, and American Childbirth is a Sleep accepted science as a solution for pain.
    [Show full text]
  • Twilight Sleep [1]
    Published on The Embryo Project Encyclopedia (https://embryo.asu.edu) Twilight Sleep [1] By: Pollesche, Jessica Keywords: Twilight Sleep [2] Dammerschlaf [3] Twilight Sleep (Dammerschlaf) was a form of childbirth first used in the early twentieth century in Germany in which drugs caused women in labor to enter a state of sleep prior to giving birth and awake from childbirth with no recollection of the procedure. Prior to the early twentieth century, childbirth was performed at home and women did not have anesthetics to alleviate the pain of childbirth. In 1906, obstetricians Bernhardt Kronig and Karl Gauss developed the twilight sleep method to relieve the pain of childbirth using a combination of the drugs scopolamine and morphine. Twilight sleep contributed to changing childbirth from an at home process to a hospital procedure and increased the use of anesthetics in obstetrics. By the 1860s, women began requesting anesthesia during childbirth, but physicians at the time did not have much evidence on the benefits. As a result, physicians began to research possible anesthetic drugs that could be used during childbirth. In 1902 Richard von Steinbüchel, an Austrian physician, recommended the use of scopolamine, a drug that caused patients to enter a semi-conscious state and experience amnesia, or the inability to recall events. Steinbüchel conducted research on the combination of morphine, a narcotic pain reliever, and scopolamine to determine the efficacy of the drug mixture as a general birth anesthetic. According to Gilbert Geis, author of In Scopolamine Veritas, Steinbüchel sought to reduce the pain of childbirth without rendering the pregnant woman completely unconscious.
    [Show full text]
  • Childbirth and Hospitalization in Vancouver, I9i9"I939* VERONICA STRONG-BOAG and KATHRYN Mcpherson
    The Confinement of Women: Childbirth and Hospitalization in Vancouver, i9I9"I939* VERONICA STRONG-BOAG AND KATHRYN McPHERSON Only relatively recently have large numbers of women been confined to institutions for the delivery of their children. The institutionalization of childbirth has radically transformed a major human experience, and the impact of this transformation has been a subject of debate among mothers, childbirth reformers, medical professionals and social scientists.1 For its defenders, the hospital has served as an important vehicle for wider distribution of obstetrical supervision and treatment with a con­ comitant reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality. Critics have responded that delivering these services within the confines of a hier­ archical, bureaucratized institution has contributed to the medicalization of childbirth, depriving women of control over their bodies and creating new psychological and physiological disorders. As this contemporary debate rages, historians have begun to examine the historical process whereby doctors appropriated, and to some degree women relinquished, control over childbirth.2 This study contributes to * We would like to thank Lynn Bueckert, Anita Clair Fellman, Robin Fisher, Linda Hale, Andrée Levesque, Indiana Matters, Angus McLaren, Arlene Tigar McLaren and the anonymous referee from BC Studies for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. We would also like to acknowledge the support of the S.S.H.R.C. Strategic Grant 498-83-0014. 1 See Ann Oakley, Women Confined: Towards a Sociology of Childbirth (London: Billing & Sons Ltd., 1980); Shelly Romalis, éd., Childbirth: Alternatives to Medi­ cal Control (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981); and Tim Chard and Martin Richards, eds., Benefits and Hazards of the New Obstetrics (Philadelphia: J.
    [Show full text]
  • The Professionalization and Medicalization of Childbirth
    University of Portland Pilot Scholars History Undergraduate Publications and Presentations History 12-7-2020 The professionalization and Medicalization of Childbirth Abigail Huston Follow this and additional works at: https://pilotscholars.up.edu/hst_studpubs Part of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Obstetrics and Gynecology Commons, and the Women's History Commons Citation: Pilot Scholars Version (Modified MLA Style) Huston, Abigail, "The professionalization and Medicalization of Childbirth" (2020). History Undergraduate Publications and Presentations. 30. https://pilotscholars.up.edu/hst_studpubs/30 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the History at Pilot Scholars. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Undergraduate Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Pilot Scholars. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Huston 1 Abigail Huston Woodard HST 471 15 September The professionalization and Medicalization of Childbirth “Hippocrates, the ancient Greek father of Western medicine, said: ‘do not refuse to believe women on matters concerning parturition’”. 1 At the turn of the 20th century half of all recorded births in the United states, and likely more, were attended my midwives, however by the 1930s only fifteen percent of births were occurring outside a hospital. Today, less than two percent of all births occur outside of a hospital. The hospital is generally supposed to be the best place to labor and deliver a baby, yet nearly forty percent of women report their childbirth experiences being traumatic, much more than would be expected given the aforementioned reputation.2 While historically, infant and maternal mortality rates are at an all-time low, the correlation between safer childbirth and increased hospitalization and professionalization of childbirth attendants is not the causation.
    [Show full text]
  • Continuous Caudal Anesthesia and the Modernization of Obstetric Pain Management in America, 1940–1960
    OUT OF THE TWILIGHT: Continuous Caudal Anesthesia and the Modernization of Obstetric Pain Management in America, 1940–1960 Catherine Gorant Gliwa Trumbull College History of Science, History of Medicine senior essay Advisor: Naomi Rogers Yale University Submitted April 4, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements . 3 Introduction . 4 1. Harnessing Science to the Stork: Obstetric Anesthesia before 1940 . 8 2. “Dramatically Painless:” The Introduction of Continuous Caudal Anesthesia . 20 3. “A Natural, Normal Process:” Early Natural Childbirth & the Beginning of Prenatal Education . 31 4. “Calm, Quiet, Relaxed and Rational:” Laboring women as patients and mothers . 43 Epilogue: Birth in 2011 & the legacy of the 1940s and 1950s . 49 Bibliographic Essay . 54 Bibliography. 61 2 Acknowledgements I could not have written this essay without the support and guidance of many wonderful people. I am extraordinarily grateful for my advisor, Naomi Rogers, who not only steered me week-to- week through this essay, but over the past few years has set a valuable example of how to think and work as a historian of medicine. Master Janet Henrich and Professor Victor Henrich, Janice Carlisle, and the Trumbull College Mellon Forum gave me a venue to practice my thoughts and be inspired by my classmates’ work. Matt Matera, a Trumbull graduate affiliate, advised my Mellon Forum presentation and encouraged me to tell a story. The Trumbull College Mellon Grant subsidized my printing and copying fees. Katie Dryden, Elsie Kenyon, Eva Uribe and Horace Williams offered many dinners, cups of tea, backrubs and funny YouTube videos at just the right moments. Emma Byers made me laugh during some late nights and gave me careful, thoughtful comments on a draft of my essay.
    [Show full text]
  • The United State of Birth: a Feminist Critique
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2011 The nitU ed State of Birth: A Feminist Crique Amanda Hardy Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Family, Life Course, and Society Commons Recommended Citation Hardy, Amanda, "The nitU ed State of Birth: A Feminist Crique" (2011). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 10252. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/10252 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The united state of birth: A feminist critique by Amanda Hardy A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Human Development and Family Studies Program of Study Committee: Sedahlia Jasper Crase, Co-major Professor Cathy Hockaday, Co-major Professor Susan Maude Dianne Draper Christine Cook Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2011 Copyright © Amanda Hardy, 2011. All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION It is with great love, sincere respect and the deepest appreciation that I dedicate this project to my mother. If ever a day goes by that I do not say I love you, know that I always do. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii LIST
    [Show full text]