Frederick Leboyer

Frédérick Leboyer
November 1, 1918 – May 25, 2017

Frédérick Leboyer, a French physician whose natural birth methods were adopted in delivery rooms around the world, died on May 25 at his home in Vens, Switzerland.

In his seminal work, Birth Without Violence, Mr. Leboyer argued that the modern delivery room bowed to the needs of doctors, women and procedures while often overlooking those of a primary player in the birth: the baby.

Mr. Leboyer argued that babies feel pain, anxiety and suffering, and that the manner in which they come into the world shapes the adults they will become.  Thus in the Leboyer method, the delivery room is kept quiet and dimly lit, to spare the baby from sensory overload. The newborn is not held upside down and spanked, and is not whisked away to be examined directly after birth.

Mr. Leboyer drew scorn from the medical establishment, but he also drew converts. Shortly after Birth Without Violence was published, mothers in delivery rooms across the United States, Britain and France began requesting the Leboyer method.

“His book was not understood by doctors; it was understood by mothers,” said French obstetrician Michel Odent.