In opposition to such violent, medicalized births, obstetricians such as Grantly Dick-Read (Natural Childbirth, 1933) and Fernand Lamaze (Painless Childbirth: the Lamaze Method, 1956) introduced more-natural methods, laying groundwork for the contemporary birth movement.
The Lamaze method didn't reach the United States until 1959, when Marjorie Karmel, who had given birth earlier in a Lamaze clinic in France, brought it here.