The Silent Mother

Esoteric & Historical Gravidity & Parturition

A Calling – Medicine and Faith with a Look to History, Part 8

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Read’s integration of faith and medicine would be familiar to older practitioners of the medical arts. Looking back as far as the 17th century, Mann, an historian who specializes in early-modern religion and culture, sees this inseparability of faith and medicine with her case study on Dr. John Downes MD (1627-1694).

Title page of “Anatomices et chirurgiae..” Fabricius Credit: Wellcome Library, London. 1624 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

Mann argues that “faith remained fundamental in many physicians’’ approaches to their life’s and their work.” She sees, “an intricate relationship between religion and medicine in the seventeenth century.”[1] Mann also suggests that future scholarship needs to study the history and religion in conjunction, rather than as two separate fields of study. She says, “[…] physicians were exceptionally well placed to ‘act the part of the divine’ when treating patients. […] Therefore, the interaction of soul and body, a matter of profound religious significance, also arose an issue in the determination of illness.”[2] Although pregnancy and childbirth are not illnesses, per se, for this argument I will utilize the category of “illness”, being an atypical state of being which needs attention. The prevailing theory among obstetricians during Read’s time, and into the modern era, is that birth is pathological and therefore necessitates medical intervention.[3]

According to Levin, the modern discussion of faith and medicine “has been going on since at least 1835 when Amariah Brigham, founder of the American Psychiatric Association, published his Observations on the Influence of Religion upon the Health and Welfare of Mankind.”[4] Levin also looks back to centuries before the common era to see the discussion of faith and medicine.[5] Throughout the history of medicine, faith and religion have always been included in the diagnosis and treatment of patients. This multiple perspective problem means that it is difficult to have apples to apples comparisons of similar issues within the medicine and faith dialog.

Mann agrees with Levin with regards to a lack of cohesion in the scholarship. She says that religion and medicine are approached as two different sub-fields, and this must be bridged since they have shared practices. She highlights the case of pain medication for childbirth as an example of perceived conflict of medicine versus religion, but it isn’t and only appears to be a conflict.[6]

Read sees no conflict either. He also sees little reason for pain medication, given that he believes birth doesn’t have to be painful. For him it really is about mothers having faith in themselves, the method, Read himself and the fulfillment of their most holy duty of motherhood. He does, somewhat backtrack a bit to appease his colleagues and to appear less fervent regarding the use of pain medication in labor. However, he does remove the determining power of the physician to offer pain medication and transfers that power to the mother to request it.

Next up: A Calling – Parallels Between Clergy and Physicians

[1] Mann, S. (2016), Physic and divinity: the case of Dr. John Downes MD (1627-1694), p.451

[2] Mann, S. (2016), Physic and divinity: the case of Dr. John Downes MD (1627-1694), p.453

[3] Beck, N.C. (1979), Preparation for Labor, a Historical Perspective, p. 245-246

[4] Levin, J. (2018), The discourse on faith and medicine, a tale of two literatures, p. 266

[5] Levin, J. (2018), The discourse on faith and medicine, a tale of two literatures, p. 267

[6] Mann, S. (2016), Physic and divinity: the case of Dr. John Downes MD (1627-1694), p. 463

Bibliography, Deena Blumenfeld, The Silent Mother, Dr. Grantly Dick-ReadDownload
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Sermons and Stories – Drawing the Listener in to the Community of Believers, Part 7

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Read used one major technique to draw women in to believing his method worked to reduce or eliminate fear and pain in childbirth. He, like many religious figures, was a consummate storyteller. These stories he told of women who had painless births brought his listeners and his readers into his thrall. His evocative storytelling is seen consistently throughout his writing. The stories give the impression that the reader may have a painless childbirth in the manner of these protagonists if only they pay attention and follow the doctrine of Read’s hopeful message.

The one story he uses, time and again, is that of the Whitechapel woman. This woman, who is nameless, impoverished and lower class. She embodies Read’s idea of a noble savage, yet she is a white woman, which feeds the idea that a birth like hers is possible for any woman. Read witnesses her refusing the chloroform he offers for pain relief, and after having given birth, she turns to him and says, “It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t meant to, was it, doctor?”[1]

There are certain key elements here in this story and in others, that create the faith in both the method and the man. The first is that Read himself is present at the birth. He is both witness and participant. He is the calm, quiet, reverend presence that instills ease in the birthing woman. Yet, he is also the physician – savior, ready to act upon any medical complication as needed. Read is counselor, confessor and physician in a neat package. His very presence is the embodiment of divinity described by Mann, even though the story has all the hallmarks of apocrypha.[2]

Secondly, Read shows faith and confidence in his patient and that faith is reciprocated from her. He believes that she can give birth on her own, free from intervention, and she does. The only doubt she professes is that for the assumption that birth is supposed to hurt. Finally, Read uses this story to convey to women that since he observed easy, painless births and derived his method from these births with the divine hand of God guiding him, then they too can birth just like the Whitechapel woman did, not only painlessly, but also in joy. They too can be participants in saving humanity through birth. Read gives them ownership of not only the birthing experience but also of the long-term positive outcome when they do it right. They create “motherlove” through which they too can take part in saving the world.

In his book, Read gives women and their husbands a specific prescription for success. The women take comfort in his method and the method is relatively straightforward. It includes eliminating negative birth stories from friends and family to begin to reduce fear, prenatal childbirth education with the husband, including progressive relaxation techniques and having the husband present in the delivery room to coach the wife in relaxation methods as taught by Read. All of this giving a woman control and, subsequently, joy during childbirth. In essence, Read promises that if women follow him and have faith in themselves, the technique and the man, they will achieve the ultimate goal of becoming a mother in a state of joy and thus setting the most positive tone for their child’s life. He offered them the world and they engaged with him and bolstered his cause.

Princess Elizabeth was a supporter of The Read Method.

Not only did the middle-class mothers hold him in adoration, but so did Princess Elizabeth, later Queen, with the birth of her first child, Charles. An article in the Daily Mirror noted, “The Princess has told her friends her belief that pain in childbirth can be greatly reduced if a woman has a calm understanding of exactly what is happening when her baby is born […] Princess Elizabeth has read Dr. Dick Read’s book. When it first came out it was impossible to sell it. Now it has been translated into five languages, is a best seller in American and is selling at the rate of thousands of copies a month in this country.”[3] The testimonial, and the faith the Princess had in Read and his method, swept him into celebrity status. This royal endorsement increased the faith women had in Read to the point of almost unquestioning fervor.

“Dear Sir, apropos of the recent statement of the Pope on painless childbirth there is a great deal of publicity given to the subject at the moment. I beg you to use your influence to campaign against the out-dated views held by the Royal College of Physicians, and go get your methods accepted as general technique, etc.” – Anonymous, Jan. 17, 1956[4]

Augmenting the faith in Read and his method was an address by Pope Pius XII on the Science and Morality of Painless Childbirth in May 1956. In this address, the Pope speaks of his dislike of the hypnosis methods of pain control for labor because it created “an emotional deference toward the child.”[5] He also has a strong dislike for pain medications because of the disconnection the mother has from reality through the brain fog of narcotics.

Pope Pius XII, supporter of natural childbirth

Circling back to the concept of the “overcivilized” woman, the Pope uses examples of “primitive peoples” painless births and biblical citations noting that not all labors are painful. He also notes the word “labor” means “work” and not “pain”. Specifically endorsing Read he writes, “For his part, the Englishman Grantly Dick Read has perfected a theory and technique which are analogous in a certain number of points in his philosophical and metaphysical postulates, however he differs substantially, because his are not based like theirs [Russian method, Pavlov and Lamaze], on a material concept.”[6] In other words the Pope supports Read’s method specifically because it is based in faith and not in empirical evidence.

The endorsements by both Pope Pius XII and Princess Elizabeth gave Read validity through influential testimonials. These testimonials and endorsements elevate Read’s status in both celebrity and divinity which enhanced his own sense of divine purpose and faith in his method.

Next Up: A Calling – Medicine and Faith with a Look to History

[1] Read, G.D. (1942), Childbirth without Fear, p. 15

[2] Mann, S. (2016), Physic and divinity: the case of Dr. John Downes MD (1627-1694), p.461

[3] Thomas, A. N. (1957), Doctor Courageous, the story of Dr. Grantly Dick Read, p. 188

[4] Thomas, M. (1997), Postwar Mothers, Childbirth Letters to Dr. Grantly Dick-Read (1946-1956), p. 45

[5] Pius XII, Pope (1956), Science and Morality of Painless Childbirth, p. 39

[6] Pius XII, Pope (1956), Science and Morality of Painless Childbirth, p. 41-42

Bibliography, Deena Blumenfeld, The Silent Mother, Dr. Grantly Dick-ReadDownload
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Grantly Dick-Read’s Martyrdom – But Through Faith Alone… Where’s the Evidence? Part 5

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The complaint of Read’s critics is that his method, and the fervent faith the mothers have in both the method and in Read himself, challenge the way they practice medicine and the validity of the profession of obstetrics itself, at times devolving into direct attacks such as Read’s comments on “meddlesome midwifery”. Read says, “Our evolution must develop on the psychosocial level, if at all, and, therefore, the science of obstetrics, in the teachings of natural childbirth, by the use of the natural or physiological equipment, by which we have attained our present relative pre-eminence, is more likely to preserve a progressive evolution than the presumptuous interference and mutilation of the products of the original and successful design.”[1]

In other words, Read believes that God’s design in pregnancy and birth is something that ought not to be manipulated or controlled by physicians. This, with good reason, encouraged criticism.

According to Moscucci, Read’s “Medical colleagues criticized the scientific basis of natural childbirth and its suitability to hospital practice.”[2] In 1962 Fielding writes, “Doctors today are warning each other that the Read method, its variations, and the teachings of other theorists that prenatal ‘preparation’is a substitute for medical assistance, have created new anxieties about childbirth that are potentially more harmful than the old ones. Whereas an ‘unprepared’ woman might once have been unduly frightened of the pain of labor, today’s ‘Natural Childbirth’ patient may learn to fear the ‘evils’ of medication instead.”[3] Fielding tells us that this fear of medication or fear of the medical institution is damaging.

Nevertheless, Read believes, “Motherhood offers all women who have the will and the courage to accept the holiest and happiest estate that can be attained by human beings.”[4] If birth is natural and women can attain their highest state of being as mothers without fear, pain or medical intervention through the use of Read’s method, what value has an obstetrician, or any medical provider in the case of a perfectly normal, physiologic experience?

Read also antagonizes his colleagues with vitriolic rebukes to their criticisms. From a letter to the editor of the British Medical Journal in June 1958, Read says, “[…] draw attention to the cult of interference which has become the priority danger of childbirth […] Early interference in obstetrics, without clinical indication, is prompted by ignorance, fear or convenience. Inadequate clinical experience beget doubts and anxieties.”[5] He goes on to say “Familiarity with the natural and physical law has enabled us to explain, and so avoid, the cause of many defects in cultural reproduction. Observations on women already made pathological by interference may demonstrate the details of disturbance but will only complicate the search for causes.”[6]

Here, he dismisses his colleagues’ research efforts with a flip comment about how they, the physicians, have caused problems during labor and birth with their meddlesome behaviors. Read may be correct in this matter, but his language is off putting to those to whom it is addressed.

The righteous indignation and caustic language Read uses fuels the belief that Read is a zealot, rather than a medical professional, as depicted by Fielding.[7] Read’s refusal to engage in proper study of his own methods and beliefs to determine if they are effective or if they cause harm further push Read to the outside fringes of the medical community.

Martyred for his cause or self-proclaimed martyr?

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, R. Christie Brown and E. R. Rees write in regard to Read’s commentary on primitive peoples labors being painless and therefore so should labors of white women, “But these people belong to a pure racial type in whom the shape of the head and the types of pelves are almost a constant. We, however, have to deal with a very hybrid race… It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the slight derivation from normal is a very common occurrence. We presume that Dr. Grantly Dick-Read would not expect such cases to be ‘quite painless.’”[8] In essence, they make the claim that had Read done a modicum of research, rather than relying on his own experience, he would have come to a different, albeit racist, conclusion.

Read states in Childbirth without Fear, “My own personal and professional experience is sufficient to enable me to draw conclusions and to support them with apparently sound evidence. The value of a theory lies ultimately in the results obtained by its practical implementation.”[9] This implies that his faith over that of empirical data, is what is truly valuable. The faith which he packages and sells to his clientele.

This goes as far as South Africa refusing Read a medical license and Read being sanctioned for advertising in Britain.[10] Read’s book sales and speaking engagements were viewed as advertising. Physicians were not permitted to do such things by their governing body.

It was Read’s dogmatic beliefs that render him a martyr to his cause and as an outcast from his community of physicians. Read essentially asked his scientifically minded, medical colleagues to take him at his word, on what he has witnessed and the revelation he has had about Natural Childbirth than based on empirical evidence. Read’s adamant refusal to conduct scientific study and rely solely on what his own eyes witness and the testimonial of the mothers who’ve had natural birth with Read’s method are at best off-putting and at worst ostracizing for Read. As a staunch defender of his method, he vigorously waved away those critical of his method and reinforced his disinterest in doing research beyond what his own eyes told him. Yet, even with all the fight and bluster, the women who engaged with Read and his method adored him.

Next up: Testify – Mothers Venerate Read and Extol his Method.

[1]Read, G. D. (1942), Childbirth without fear, p. 23

[2]Moscucci, O. (2002), Holistic Obstetrics: the origins of “natural childbirth” in Britain, p. 171

[3]Fielding, W. L. (1962), The childbirth challenge: commonsense vs. “natural” methods, p 57

[4]Read, G. D. (1942), Childbirth without fear, p. 6

[5]Read, G. D. (1958), The British Medical Journal, Induction of Labor, p. 1478

[6] Ibid.

[7]Fielding, W. L. (1962), The childbirth challenge: commonsense vs. “natural” methods, pp. 55 – 59

[8]Brown, R. C and Rees, E. R., (1945), The British Medical Journal, p. 924

[9] Read, G. D. (1942), Childbirth without fear, p. 18

[10] Thomas, A.N. (1957), Doctor Courageous, p. 192-193

Bibliography, Deena Blumenfeld, The Silent Mother, Dr. Grantly Dick-ReadDownload
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