On Wednesday, March 10th, from 4:30-6:30 p.m. we’ll be talking Lamaze in the Iowa Women’s Archives.

We’ve joined forces with the UI History of Medicine Society and the Council on the Status of Women’s Herstory Committee to bring you some entertainment and enlightenment.  Join us from 4:30 to 5:15 for cookies and conversation with old friends and new.

At 5:15 p.m., Theatre Arts graduate student Janet Schlapkohl will entertain with “There’s This Thing Called Lamaze,” a brief monologue and song about natural childbirth in the 1970s.  We’ll be entering uncharted territory in the IWA with live music  (if we can pull it off).  Some of you will have seen Janet perform at the Riverside Theater as part of Walking the Wire.

At 5:30 p.m. Professor Paula Michaels of the UI History Department will present a lecture “Comrades in the Labor Room: The International Story of the Lamaze Method, 1950-80.”  Most of us are familiar with the Lamaze method’s patterned breathing and conscious relaxation that became popular in the 1960s and 70s along with the natural childbirth movement (be sure to check out the very seventies attire pictured on the Lamaze books in the IWA reading room display).  But who knew about the Soviet origins of Lamaze and its association with the French Communist Party?   Paula Michaels will talk about the origins of the Lamaze method and the efforts to obscure these leftist ties during the Cold War in order to make Lamaze palatable to Americans. 

Hope to see you here on Wednesday afternoon. 

(3rd floor, south side, University of Iowa Main Library at the corner of Burlington and Madison in Iowa City).