ABSTRACT
Why a normal process such as childbirth should be so painful is puzzling; many have suggested that the reasons may be in part psychological. Anthropological observations indicate that the behavior expected during confinement varies widely from culture to culture, but the idea that primitive births are painless is probably a myth. In western culture, pain in childbirth has been taken so much for granted that it has been rationalized as in some sense “deisrable;” its reduction, as by chemical anesthetics, has seemed “immoral.” This attitude has slowly changed, until the issue we face today is not whether the pains should be reduced, but how. The more favorable attitude toward alleviation of labor pains was given a sanction by England's Queen Victoria in 1853, when Snow anesthetized her for the birth of Prince Leopold. The choice today is between chemical pain reducers and psychological procedures—or, of course, some combination of the two. In this chapter we shall be concerned primarily with the psychological methods, of which hypnosis is one.
