(JTA) — Elisabeth Bing, a leader in the natural childbirth movement who became known as the “mother of Lamaze,” died at 100.
Bing, who fled Nazi Germany in 1933 due to her Jewish roots, died Friday at her home in Manhattan.
She helped to found the educational organization Lamaze International with Marjorie Karmel and advocated for the natural childbirth technique in her book “Six Practical Lessons for an Easier Childbirth,” as well in lectures and on television talk shows, according to The New York Times.
After fleeing Germany, Bing, whose Jewish parents converted to Protestantism, trained as a physical therapist in England before moving to the United States in 1949. She worked giving physical therapy to postpartum women before becoming interested in teaching natural childbirth methods.
Bing, who preferred the term “prepared childbirth” to “natural childbirth,” taught Lamaze classes in hospitals and in a studio in her Manhattan apartment.
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