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Soviet and American Childbearing Experiences and Attitudes: A Comparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Jean Ispa
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Extract

In 1951, and again in 1955, Dr. Fernand Lamaze, a French obstetrician, traveled to the Soviet Union to study “psychoprophylaxis,” a method designed by Soviet psychologists, obstetricians, and neurologists to help women overcome pain and fear during childbirth. The method, which was rooted in the medical use of hypnosis and suggestion to alleviate pain, involved training women to take their minds off uterine contractions by concentrating instead on other bodily functions, such as breathing. Lamaze refined the method and brought it to the West.

Lamaze's account of his indebtedness to Soviet scientists suggests that it may be useful to learn more about Soviet women's experiences during pregnancy and childbirth. Perusal of the literature, however, indicates that, while general descriptions in English of Soviet obstetrical care are available, very little is known about Soviet women's perceptions of and attitudes toward pregnancy and delivery.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1983

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References

1. For a history of psychoprophylaxis in Soviet obstetrical research and practice, see John Bell, “Giving Birth to the New Soviet Man: Politics and Obstetrics in the USSR,” Slavic Review, 40 (Spring 1981): 1-16.

2. Fernand Lamaze, Painless Childbirth: Psychoprophylactic Method (New York: Pocket Books, 1965), pp. 11-17.

3. Mace, David and Mace, Vera, The Soviet Family (New York: Doubleday, 1963), pp. 246–48Google Scholar. Hedrick, Smith, The Russians (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), pp. 191–92.Google Scholar

4. Herschel Alt and Edith Alt, Russia's Children (New York: Bookman Associates, 1959), p. 147.

5. Mace and Mace, pp. 246-48. Colette Shulman, “The Individual and the Collective” in Women in Russia, ed. Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, and Gail W. Lapidus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977), p. 381.

6. For example, see: Mandel, William M., Soviet Women (New York: Anchor Books, 1975), p. 239 Google Scholar; Kaiser, Robert G., Russia: The People and the Power (New York: Pocket Books, 1976), pp. 24–26 Google Scholar. Smith, pp. 191-93.

7. William A. Kraus, Inside Russian Medicine (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1980).

8. Bell, pp. 14-15.

9. Macy, Christopher and Falkner, Frank, Pregnancy and Birth: Pleasures and Problems (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 18-27, 54–57 Google Scholar. Mead, Margaret and Newton, Niles, “Cultural Patterns of Perinatal Behavior,” in Childbearing — Its Social and Psychological Aspects, ed. Stephen A. Richardson and Alan F. Guttmacher (New York: Williams and Wilkins, 1967), pp. 142–243.Google Scholar

10. G. M. Sagalov, “Organizatsia raboty akusherki Fel'dshersko-Akusherstvo Punkta (FAP) po okhrane zdorov'ia materi i rebenka,” Fel'dsher i akusherka, 1980, no. 1: 6-10.

11. A. P. Pauner, “Shkola molodykh ottsov,” Fel'dsher i akusherka, 1975, no. 6: 49.

12. Earl S. Schaefer and Helene Manheimer, “Dimensions of Perinatal Adjustment,” Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, April, 1960.

13. Christopher Davis and Murray Feshbach, Rising Infant Mortality in the USSR in the 1970's (U.S. Department of Commerce, Series P. 95, no. 74, 1980), pp. 24-25.

14. Mead and Newton, pp. 142-243.

15. Samuel C. Ramer, “Childbirth and Culture: Midwifery in the Nineteenth Century Russian Countryside,” in The Family in Imperial Russia, ed. David L. Ransel (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), pp. 218-19, 228.

16. Susan G. Doering and Doris R. Entwisle, “Preparation During Pregnancy and Ability to Cope with Labor and Delivery,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 45 (1975): 825-37.

17. Henry P. David, Family Planning and Abortion in the Socialist Countries of Central and Eastern Europe. A Compendium of Observations and Readings (New York: The Population Council, 1970), pp. 52-53.

18. Leon Chertok, “Vomiting and the Wish to Have a Child,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 25 (1963): 13-18.

19. William J. Henneborn and Rosemary Cogan, “The Effect of Husband Participation on Reported Pain and the Probability of Medication During Labor and Birth,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 19 (1975): 215-22.

20. Davis and Feshbach, p. 29.

21. Ibid., pp. 24-25.

22. See, for example, Gail W. Lapidus, Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development and Social Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 265-84.

23. Gwen G. Schwartz and Barbara Wyden, The Jewish Wife (New York: Peter H. Wyden, 1969), pp. 98-108.

24. Paul Hollander, Soviet and American Society: A Comparison (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 282-88.

25. Mead and Newton, pp. 142-243.

26. Hollander, pp. 272-74; Mandel, pp. 253-73.

27. Mace and Mace, pp. 246-47; Shulman, p. 381.

28. Jessica Tovrov, “Mother-Child Relationships Among the Russian Nobility,” in Ransel, pp. 15-43.

29. Angelo S. Rappoport, Home Life in Russia (New York: Macmillan, 1913), pp. 78, 82-84.

30. Antonina Martynova, “Life of the Pre-Revolutionary Village as Reflected in Popular Lullabies,” in Ransel, pp. 171-88.