The meaning of natural childbirth.

The term "natural childbirth" encompasses a variety of methods, including the Lamaze, Bradley, and home-birth approaches, which place more or less reliance on medical technology. Aristotle's analysis of three levels of human activity--digestion and reproduction, perception and locomotion, and abstract thinking--and Pellegrino and Thomasma's classification of the "living body," "lived body," and "lived self," provide a principled framework in which each of these childbirth practices can be considered natural.