Marie-Louise Lachapelle (1 January 1769 – 4 October 1821) was a French midwife, head of obstetrics at the Hôtel-Dieu, the oldest hospital in Paris. She published textbooks about women's bodies, gynecology, and obstetrics. She argued against forceps deliveries and wrote Pratique des accouchements, long a standard obstetric text, which promoted natural deliveries. Lachapelle is generally regarded as the mother of modern obstetrics. Life Lachapelle was born in Paris to Marie Jonet, a competitive midwife, and Louis Dugès, a health official, on 1 January 1769. She was the granddaughter and daughter of midwives. She was an only child. Her mother taught her midwifery, which she had learned from her mother, and she quickly became skilled. When she was 15, she performed her first delivery, in which there were complications, although both mother and baby survived thanks to Lachapelle's ministrations. Eight years later, in 1792, she married a surgeon who worked at the Hôpital Saint-Louis. Between 1792 and 1795, she gave birth to a daughter and stopped working. After her husband's death three years after their marriage, she had to support herself and her daughter; so she worked again as a midwife. Her daughter then broke away from family tradition and became a nun. Lachapelle died of stomach cancer on 4 October 1821 after a short illness. Career By the age of twelve, she was performing complicated deliveries, and at fifteen, she was able to perform single-handedly a version that was potentially fatal if handled incorrectly. Not only did she handle a difficult case but she saved both mother and child at the early age of fifteen. While her mother was still alive, Lachapelle had reorganized the maternity ward at the Hôtel-Dieu, and Lachapelle assisted her as an associate chief midwife. The hospital served the poor and was supported by Notre Dame de Paris. It was the premier obstetric hospital of its time and was renowned for its school of midwifery. During 1796 and 1797 she studied obstetrics under Franz Naegele, She was teaching beside professor Jean-Louis Baudelocque at the Hôtel-Dieu. In 1797, after her mother's death, Lachapelle inherited her mother's position as head of Hôtel-Dieu, the largest public hospital in Paris. In 1799 in Port-Royal de Paris, she helped organize a new maternity department connected with the Hôtel-Dieu. Baudelocque realized the need for a systematically organized school for midwives. Because of Lachapelle's medical experience and reputation, she was asked by the