What a Blessing She Had Chloroform: The Medical and Social Response to the Pain of Childbirth from 1800 to the Present [Hardcover]

The use of anesthetics to alleviate pain associated with childbirth is controversial. This book, written by a physician specializing in obstetric anesthesia, is an attempt to understand and explain women's reactions to this pain. He explores several interesting subjects in the process. The development of anesthesia occurred during a period of political, social, and scientific change. Physicians had to learn to think like scientists as they mastered the use of a new tool. The social reactions to childbirth were also changing as the feminist and suffrage movements liberated women from religious doctrines associating pain with sin and punishment. The interaction between medical practice and social values, between physicians who see pain as a scientific problem and women who view childbirth as a social, political, and/or personal issue, is fascinating. Physicians discover what can be done, but patients decide what will be done. Unlike Judith Leavitt's Brought to Bed (1986), which discusses the history of childbearing in America, this book deals with the development of anesthesia, its use in childbirth, and the colorful personalities involved in these events. Recommended for health science, medical history, women's studies, academic, and large public libraries.ABarbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Anesthesiologist Caton tells a fascinating story. Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson first used chloroform on patients in labor shortly after the mid-nineteenth-century discovery of surgical anesthesia. His major contribution was equating the pain of childbirth with that of surgery; that is, realizing that pain served no useful purpose and often hampered patient and surgeon. After Simpson, the next major figure is John Snow, the first scientific anesthesiologist, who used chloroform on Queen Victoria during her last two birth labors. Although those events gave the process widely favorable publicity, Snow's main contribution consisted in keeping detailed records, investigating processes and effects, and relying on statistics. Caton also explores twilight sleep, Grantly Dick Read and "natural childbirth," and the role of prenatal care. He deals not only with medicine and science but also with the conflicting views among both physicians and the public. Caton's work is an enjoyable and valuable addition to the literature of medicine and society. William Beatty

In this fascinating history of the use of anesthesia in childbirth, Dr. Donald Caton offers a unique perspective on the interaction between medical science and social values. Tracing the responses of physicians and their patients to the pain of childbirth from the first use of anesthesia for labor in the 1840s to the natural childbirth movement and beyond, Dr. Caton shows the powerful influence of patients? desires on medical decisions.