The Sheppard-Towner Act earmarks federal funds for educating women about prenatal and postnatal care. It is one of the first successes suffragists achieve after getting the vote. Lack of prenatal care and unnecessary, incorrect surgical interventions are to blame. The New York Academy of Medicine begins to campaign against the use of interventions such as forceps, cesarean sections, and drugs. Scientists discover how to manufacture and store penicillin, dramatically reducing mortality from postpartum infections.
Spinal anesthesia is introduced, which evolves into the modern epidural.
Numbing women from the waist down but leaving them conscious, the epidural is safer than the general anesthesia previously used. British obstetrician Grantly Dick-Read publishes Childbirth Without Fear, a book that glorifies motherhood and promises painless childbirth 95 percent of the time through relaxation and breathing. Approximately 2 percent of American babies are delivered by midwives outside of the hospital today. Copyright 2001, The Parenting Group.