Medicine: Childbirth on Record

In the bedroom of a London home, dark-haired Dillon Usill, 31, lay in labor, awaiting the birth of her first child. Counseling and assisting the patient was Dr. Grantly Dick Read, famed pioneer advocate of the "natural-childbirth" technique, which seeks to reduce the mother's dependence on drugs through relaxation and elimination of fear. As in many births by the natural method, the prospective father was on hand, comforting and reassuring his wife—and, in this case, operating a tape recorder to pick up every bedside sound. From twelve hours of tape recorded during labor, Westminster Records last week released a 53-minute Long Playing disk (Natural Childbirth; $3.98), reproducing in sound the high drama of life's beginning.

The voice of Dr. Dick Read explains as the record begins that Mrs. Usill is nearing the end of the first stage of labor; dilatation of the cervix, now almost complete, has been accomplished with little discomfort: "She is lying relaxed on her right side, as she has been taught." The sound of the patient's deep and rapid breathing signals the onset of each new contraction; they are now coming three minutes apart. In a quiet moment, a microphone attached to the doctor's stethoscope picks up the fetal heartbeat, amplified to thunderous volume. "That's fine," he remarks. "One hundred forty-five and going strong." Between contractions, Mrs. Usill complains of hunger. "I could do with some honey," she says, and it is brought.

As the infant begins its passage from the uterus, the doctor gently encourages the mother to push as hard as she is able to during contractions. "Many people with the first one don't know how to push," he explains. "You are not hurting?" "Not at all," says the resting patient. "It's hard work ... I find it jolly tiring . . . Oh, let's get on. I have another contraction,"

When the infant's head emerges, the fully conscious mother demands to know whether she has a boy or a girl. "I can't tell," the doctor replies. "That part isn't out yet." Moments later, the shrill wail of young David Usill rises above the murmur of the bedside sounds. "Oh, doctor," breathes the mother, "that's beautiful."