Imagine for a moment a small room with light green walls and the smell of latex and disinfectant. The harsh light from fluorescent bulbs gives the space a harsh, unnatural glow. A woman is lying on a metal bed: covered with a light sheet, her legs spread uncomfortably apart, her feet in stirrups. A doctor and an entourage of residents enter the room in white coats. The doctor slips on a pair of latex gloves, looks and feels between the woman's legs, announces that everything is moving "on schedule," and rushes out the door to another patient. The woman wonders, among other things, what "on schedule" means. It doesn't sound very pleasant, but that's what giving birth in an American hospital was like for years. And, for many women, that's still true today. Just add to the situation a fetal monitor to measure the baby's heart rate, an IV in the mother's arm, an ultrasound machine, a catheter to collect the mother's urine, surgical instruments to perform a pre-birth episiotomy (an incision made to widen the vaginal opening) and various other technological devices, "just in case". While they can be helpful in certain situations, such as high-risk births, these things can hinder the natural process of labor. In this article I will examine three distinct phases of obstetric care in the United States. By looking at the stages, you can see the evolution of childbirth in our country, as it has developed from a female-dominated field to a male-dominated one, and as it is now starting to break away from some of the traditional medical methods that have been used for over 50 years. However, this break is not complete. Even though today's woman has more power in decision-making than ever before, we Americans still can't detach ourselves from the technology used during childbirth, even though much of it is unnecessary and can sometimes even be harmful. Over the last 100 years, our view of pregnancy and childbirth has evolved to consider them a condition or disease that needs to be controlled and treated by modern medicine. The first phase of OB care took place before and during the 19th century. At the time, midwifery was a field dominated by women, almost entirely midwives. Almost all doctors were men, but for the most part obstetrics was not studied in medical schools.