‘Mother of Lamaze’ Dies at 100

Elisabeth Bing, who fought for greater acceptance of natural childbirth methods in medicine, died Friday at age 100. Bing popularized the Lamaze breathing method and helped found a nonprofit devoted to changing childbirth practices. When she began her work, women were usually heavily sedated during childbirth and men were kept away. Bing preferred to call her methods “prepared childbirth,” emphasizing that she sought to give women the information necessary to make informed decisions. “It was a tremendous cultural revolution that changed obstetrics entirely,” she said of her methods in a 1988 interview.