Birth In Three Cultures

Culture traditions a direct connection of mothers and infants. This book “Ancient Bodies, Modern Customs, and Our Health’ is about the tradition or culture of mother and infants and how their health is affected. The author is Elizabeth D. Whitaker is an anthropology researcher and lecturer and writer. Whitaker earned her bachelor’s degree from Duke University, master from University of Minnesota, and Ph.D from Emory University.

After having less liberty than desired under the care of an Obstetrician while delivering my older sister, my mum decided to seek care from a Midwife for her last two delivers. In comparison to her reflections about her first birth, when recalling my birth she remains enthused about the respect, care and freedom her Midwife gave her. The impact self-governance has on birth always strikes me when my mum speaks of her experiences. It is evident that allowing laboring women to assume ownership of their own bodies affects them, and subsequently their children, for a

In the film Babies Thomas Balmès elegantly and wordlessly captures the first year of life through the eyes of four unique cultures. This film follows four babies Panijao from Namibia, Mari from Japan, Hattie from the United States, and Bayarjargal from Mongolia. The main purpose of the film is to show how the four cultures differ in their behaviors with infants. One of the striking differences is the role the parents play in the documentary and how they interact with their newborn infants. In contrast, the film also shows the similarities in infancy even in vastly different environments and cultures.

The paper introduces a sophisticated analysis of the maternity-related issues as well as childbearing policies in the USA. The American documentary “Born in the USA” serves as a material for the study. It is the first public television documentary to provide an in-depth look at childbirth in America. It offers a fascinating overview of birthing, beginning with the early days of our country when almost everyone knew of mothers or babies who died in childbirth. As medicine advanced, maternal and infant mortality rates dropped radically. Hospitals were soon promoted as the safe, modern way to have a baby. The film reveals some crucial specifications of pregnancy, giving birth to a child and raising an offspring in the United States. Specifically, it verifies a general assumption, according to which American obstetricians possess a worldwide recognition, due to their proficiency (Wagner, 2008, p. 4). Moreover, the paper reviews such issues as pregnancy

Marilyn Strathern in her review of God's Laboratory wrote that " this book branches out in an informed and lively commentary on attitudes derived from the European Enlightenment to be found in mainstream (Euro-American) accounts of assisted conception. Among them is the kind of agency entailed in a nature/culture paradigm, whose starting point is that nature is a given; Andean approaches are more likely to have their roots in religious categories based on the pre-biological determinations of lineage that were precursors to the contemporary Ecuadorian concept of race. This is surely, really, a book of our times" ( Strathern 2013). Elizabeth Roberts unfolds culture, history, race, gender relation of Ecuador in her ethnography with every detail,

The way people interact and live in North America is to this day impacted by colonial thought and beliefs that have been enforced through both the government and social constructs. The impacts are present subtly throughout our entire lives in Canada without us fully realizing the changes it enforces in social interactions and natural body functions. This paper will focus on the differences between Indigenous and “western” ways of birthing affect women, and how the processes of birth have changed and are currently changing. The question that guided the research for this paper was; How does Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe births and “western” Canadian births compare and how does resurgence, found in traditional births, influence cultural revitalization?

I found much of the traditional Hmong birth practices highly interesting. For instance, the Hmong believe that if the pregnant mother did not strictly eat the foods she craved, certain deformities would result to the child. They also find it true that drinking hot water during the labor will assist in unlocking the birth canal. After the birth, the placenta is buried by the father, so that the when that person dies, their soul can return to its” first jacket” (jacket meaning placenta in Hmong language), in order to continue it’s after death journey. On the other hand, I feel that a few of their specific practices could potentially be very dangerous. Foua gave birth to twelve of her children on the dirt floor in the home that her father had

Reading descriptions in medical texts, Martin wondered how male-oriented views from textbooks matched so cohesively with those of the interviewees. After some research, Martin realized the thought process of woman during labor matched the text book definitions due the definitions men witnessed during childbirth and illustrated in text books and woman culturally internalized and learned through ideology as a description of contractions vs. giving birth.

While visiting Alto do Cruzeiro in 1965, Hughes noticed women were indifferent concerning the death of their children. Infants born dead or “waiting to die” is a common occurrence in Alto do Cruzeiro. The women of the community became use to experiencing these tragedies and decided it would be easier to cooperate with Gods plan. If an infant is born “waiting to die”, the mother will usually leave the child to die. Having this kind of attitude towards dying infants has a powerful impact on maternal thinking and practice. Already knowing that an infant will not survive makes the women less loving and nurturing. When an infant actually survives, the mother has a difficult time raising the child. Children born in this area “lack traditional breast feeding, subsistence gardens, stable marriages, and multiple adult care-takers that exists in the interior.” Since single parenting is the norm, woman are forced to leave the infant at home, many times by itself. The women cannot carry their child with them at work or by the river. They can not leave their child with the older children because if they are not in school they are working as well. Also, since women earn a dollor and day, they can not afford to hire a baby

The film Babies takes a look at the development of four babies from four different cultures as they progress through their first year. The film does not try to answer if nature or nurture is more important to the development of these children. However, it does allow observers to explore the interaction between these two complex factors.

For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood, bodies, and what it means to be a woman in our society. Being a woman comes with a wonderful and empowering responsibility--giving birth. What sets us aside from other countries is that the process and expectations of giving birth has changed in our society; coming from midwifery, as it has always been since the early times, to hospitals where it is now expected to give birth at. Midwifery was a common practice in delivering babies in

In The Call of the Wild written by Jack London, Buck doesn’t simply want to survive, he wants to master his environment. His struggle for survival is accented by Charles Darwin’s idea of natural selection, another prominent idea in the story. Likewise, Herbert Spencer’s concept of Social Darwinism is present in the novel. The themes of the struggle for survival as well as the struggle for mastery are integrated throughout The Call of the Wild.

Does everybody think or feels the same about childbirth around the world? This question above is a question that has always been in my mind. Now that I got the opportunity of choosing a topic to do research. I decided to choose childbirth and culture. This research paper is going to talk about how different cultures and countries look a birth in an entirely different manner. Some look at birth as a battle and others as a struggle. And on some occasions, the pregnant mother could be known as unclean or in other places where the placenta is belief to be a guardian angel. These beliefs could be strange for us but for the culture in which this is being practiced is natural and a tradition. I am going to be introducing natural and c-section childbirth. And, the place of childbirth is going to be a topic in this essay. America is one country included in this research paper.

Some women experience birth as a very sacred, spiritual, deeply healing, and transforming experience in their life; while some women experience birth as traumatic. Still, other women do not experience birth with any spiritual or emotional significance. There are many reasons for these various experiences, which have been covered extensively in other studies and articles. Some of those reasons are personal beliefs about birth held by the woman due to religious and cultural influences, and any personal experiences surrounding birth; the woman’s support system during birth, and the trust that the birthing woman and that of her birth team have in a woman’s body to birth, baby to know how to be born, and the birth process itself (Hatsun 2007). Women’s experiences of childbirth have changed significantly in the past few years in the developing countries like India. Deliveries used to take place only in home setups and anganwadis in olden days, but now it is occurring in private specialist hospitals by experienced nurses in the field of obstetrics. So there arises a increased alienation from the familiar environment and familiar persons (Swarna s, 2006)

As it has been discovered through Samoan Indigenous birthing process, it is not just about giving birth and raising a child. The birthing process is a community effort in which requires all to participate in assurance of the well being of the mother and child throughout the pregnancy. The birth of a child brings to mind awe at the mystery of human life. It is the essence and the beauty of this process that inspired me to theologize it in an effort to think out ways to promote the transformation of our thinking; for the betterment of our church. It has been commented by many that our church is in need of transformation. This chapter will be an attempt to theologize important fa’atosaga, fa’afailele and the womb.