It has been reported online that popular French obstetrician and childbirth specialist, Michel Odent has sadly passed away at the age of 95.
The international Confederation of Midwives through their official Facebook page announced the news of Michel’s demise, describing him as a man whose vision and writing reshaped the way they understand human birth.
Read excerpts below:-
We are saddened to hear news of the passing of Michel Odent, whose vision and writing reshaped the way we understand human birth.
Michel Odent reminded us that birth is not a medical procedure to be controlled, but a primal rhythm to be respected.
He advocated for home-like maternity units, warm water births, protecting the birthing woman’s privacy and honouring her instincts, undisturbed contact between mother and newborn; he was among the first to discuss the importance of the microbiome, and question many of the practices that had (and have) become normalised in over medicalised maternity systems globally.
Michel Odent’s legacy lives on in every dimmed, quiet birthing room, and in every midwife his words and work inspired to join our profession.
Born in a French village on July 7, 1930, Odent studied medicine in Paris and trained as a surgeon in the 1950s. He has been described in The Lancet as “one of the last real general surgeons”
He has authored 17 books published in 22 languages and he is the author of the first articles about the initiation of breastfeeding during the hour following birth, the first article about the use of birthing pools during labour, and the first article applying the Gate control theory of pain to obstetrics.
In a book published in 1986 (“Primal Health”), Odent provided evidence that homeostasis is established during the “primal period” (fetal life, birth and the months following birth): this is the phase of life when human basic adaptive systems are adjusting their “set point levels”. Odent later focused on the possible evolution of Homo sapiens in relation to the modern modes of childbirth.
