Frédérick Leboyer et les mères : L’Inde comme matrice de gestation de la naissance sans violence

Abstract

Frédérick Leboyer (1918-2017) is famous as an obstetrician-gynecologist for his promotion of "birth without violence." In the 1960s, he became one of the French disciples of Svāmi Prajñānpad (1891-1974). Beyond the influence of this spiritual master on Leboyer’s personal and spiritual development, but also on his professional practice, for him, India is a mother. Indeed, it was also through his encounters with Indian women that he envisioned a new way of giving birth and being born that was, at the time, revolutionary. This article examines his encounters with three women present in his works (literary, photographic, cinematographic, musical) and participate in the transmission from India to France and then to the world of practices around motherhood: singing and yoga, work with breath, postures and sounds, and baby massage.