A Comparative History of Painless Childbirth in China: From Psychoprophylactic Method to the Lamaze Method

In the 1950s, the Soviet psychoprophylactic method (PPM) of childbirth was introduced to the People's Republic of China, eliciting widespread enthusiasm. It was promoted through a top-down approach, and underwent a degree of localization intertwined with the concurrent acupuncture fever (zhenjiure) that characterized China's medical and cultural landscape during this period. PPM's spread can be understood as a result of ideology, political discourse, international politics, and specific healthcare demand, including the institutionalization of childbirth. Notably, the Soviet PPM also spread to the United States via France. Within the context of rising feminism, de-medicalization, and commercialism in American society, it became known as the Lamaze method, named after the French doctor and stripped of its Soviet associations. In the late 1970s, the so-called Lamaze method re-entered China quietly, but met with a lukewarm reception in the context of China's market-oriented healthcare reform. Compared to caesarean sections and obstetrics anaesthesia, the Lamaze method was less favourable in terms of performance and cost-effectiveness. This article examines why the Soviet PPM and the American Lamaze method showed divergent diffusion paths and outcomes, despite their shared underlying principles and historical origins. By situating these developments within international and Chinese political and sociocultural contexts, it explores how medical technologies are reinterpreted across cultures.