34 / 48 1910s most babies were still delivered at home with the aid of a doctor or midwife. the first maternity hospital was created in 1914, and that same year, twilight sleep, using morphine and scopolamine to anesthetize the mother, gained popularity. 1920s deliveries were done with every known intervention at the time. doctors believed that childbirth was a pathological process and that every procedure must be used. doctors would forcibly dilate the cervix, give ether during the second stage of labor, cut an episiotomy, deliver the baby with forceps, extract the placenta, give medications for the uterus to contract, and then stitch up the episiotomy. 1930s nearly 75 percent of all births happened in a hospital, attended by a doctor who specializes in obstetrics. infant deaths from birth injuries likely from all of the unnecessary interventions, were common. twilight sleep was used in nearly 100 percent of the births. 1940s by 1945, the baby boom was in full swing. twilight sleep was still common but there was a book published in 1942 on the benefits of natural childbirth. by the late 1940s, women began to have more of an understanding of how their reproductive organs worked, thanks to the kinsey reports on human sexuality. 1950s ninety percent of women were giving birth in a hospital, and more women began protesting being unconscious during the entirety of childbirth. twilight sleep slowly fell out of favor and the national organization for public health nursing emphasized pregnancy and childbirth as normal, healthy, and a family affair. fetal ultrasounds were also invented, but were only used to assess medical problems, not to see the gender. 1960s ninety-nine percent of all american women had their children in a hospital under a doctor?s care. fetal monitoring systems were invented to observe baby?s heart rate during labor. antibiotics became a standard treatment in postpartum care, and the rate of both maternal and infant deaths continued to decline. the birth control pill was cleared by the fda in 1960. babies by the decades p o p u l a r g i r l n a m e s p o p u l a r b o y n a m e s 1910 john william