In this 1939 educational film, a class of
expectant mothers practise ante-natal exercises designed by
Kathleen Vaughn at the London County Council's Paddington Hospital.
The exercises are designed to increase the flexibility of the
pelvic joints in preparation for birth, and involve deep breathing,
arm-raising, stair stepping, tiptoe walking, and pelvic floor
stretching. One of the participants, a former ballerina,
demonstrates the poses, and then performs a small ballet dance.
Kathleen Vaughn pioneered new techniques in
childbirth and antenatal care. From 1903 to the 1920s she worked in
healthcare in India, as superintendent at hospitals in Calcutta and
then Srinagar, where she observed the benefits to Kashmiri women of
giving birth in a squatting position. On her return to Britain she
took up a maternity care position at Paddington Hospital, and
published works on safe childbirth and antenatal exercises.
In 1929, Paddington Hospital, originally an
infirmary attached to the Paddington workhouse, came under the
control of the London County Council. In the years before the
Second World War, the LCC was responsible for many aspects of
socialised healthcare, such as hospitals and midwifery, which were
ceded to the newly-created National Health Service in 1948.