The anthropologist and childbirth expert Sheila Kitzinger has died aged 86. Kitzinger was a prolific author of books for parents-to-be and came to be known as the “high priestess of natural childbirth”. She was an early leader of the natural childbirth movement and sought to shift the focus on to the mother during pregnancy and birth.
But her eldest daughter Celia Kitzinger said her mother was “so much more than a ‘natural birth guru’”; she had campaigned on issues including an end to female genital mutilation.
Celia Kitzinger, a professor at the University of York, said her mother taught her from an early age that “the personal was political, not just by what she said but by what she did”. She said: “As I was growing up, I learned from her campaigns for freedom and choice in childbirth that passionate and committed individuals can create social change. She never hesitated to speak truth to power.
“I am reminded, reading her autobiography, of the sheer range and breadth of the issues she has been involved in – from female genital mutilation to prisoners giving birth in handcuffs and human rights in midwifery in eastern Europe.”
According to the BBC, Sheila Kitzinger’s husband Uwe said she was a “woman of great spunk”, adding: “She was an icon of home birth who decided to have a home death.”
The Oxford Mail quoted him as saying: “She took to her bed three months ago, but she was drinking Kir royale and champagne and eating chocolates three days ago, knowing she didn’t have long.
“She was great to be married to, and she was a wonderful mother. She and I were married for 63 years. We said goodbye with a prayer.”
Sheila Kitzinger’s publisher Pinter & Martin said she died “calmly at her home” on Saturday 11 April, following a short illness. Martin Wagner, the firm’s managing director, called her an “extraordinary woman”. He said she campaigned tirelessly to “make the world a better place for us all”.
He said: “She will be missed more than she could have ever imagined, but we can find comfort in the fact that she inspired countless others to continue her vital work.”
In her book Birth over 35, she wrote a passage that went a long way towards summing up her approach to her work: “Health is not a medical artefact. Economics, politics, the social system in which we live, conditions in the workplace, poisons in the environment, and personal relationships are all elements in causing health and disease. Doctors treat illness; they do not make us healthy. For the vast majority of women physical health and a sense of well-being during pregnancy is nothing to do with how often they visit the doctor, but with the social conditions in which they live.”
Her autobiography, A Passion for Birth, is due to be published next month.
