Documentaire sur la méthode psychoprophylactique d’accouchement sans douleur introduite en France par le Docteur Fernand Lamaze. Evaluation de l’importance de cette méthode dans le monde. Les cours de préparation physique et les méthodes de relaxation. L’accouchement. The English subtitled version is also available on our video page. Made in France… See More
Flora Hommel (first seen at 3:00) promoted Childbirth Without Pain (the Lamaze psycho-prophylactic method of painless childbirth) with this film, co-produced in 1970 by filmmaker Wil Berg. Flora considered this film an American version of the well-respected French film Naissance. Wil and his wife Edith are also the subjects of the… See More
The original film in French, without subtitles, is also available in our Video section. Made in France in 1956, this film was widely shown in the United States by Flora Hommel, founder of Childbirth Without Pain Education Association (CWPEA) based in Detroit. It summarizes the classes attended by expectant parents… See More
A Labor of Love A celebration held at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University Archives on July 30, 2015, honored the life and work of Flora Hommel (March 16, 1928 – May 15, 2015). Speakers included archivist Erik Nordberg, Senator Carl Levin, historian Marsha Richmond, Judith Cawhorn, Michele… See More
This letter was written by Elaine Stottlemyer in 2014. It was 1969; I was pregnant and quite anxious about it. I had seen the movies showing women screaming as they gave birth. In most movies, the doctor would shut the door, and after hours of muffled noises of agony, would… See More
While CWPEA, the organization, is no longer active, its history, the training materials, three decades of monthly newsletters, key correspondence of the movement that promoted the Lamaze (psychoprophylactic) method, along with thousands of mother-written birth reports, are housed in the Flora Hommel Papers at the archives of the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit. See More
In 2011, Susan Brohman wrote an article about Flora Hommel in Michigan Jewish History, a publication of the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan.
The article provides an overview of Flora’s life and her journey to creating the Detroit-based nonprofit organization Childbirth Without Pain Education Association.
Flora Suhd Hommel brought the Lamaze method of painless childbirth to Detroit and the US after returning from Paris where she had lived as a young adult from 1946 to 1953. She graduated from Wayne University with a BS and nursing degree in 1958, in order to promote the psychoprophylactic… See More
The classic book Thank You, Dr. Lamaze by Marjorie Karmel is out of print and difficult to find. We are making the full text available here. See More