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...