Birth In Three Cultures

“The Business of Being Born” In America and globally, we are known to do things differently apart from other countries, and sometimes it is beneficial, but by doing things differently; are we setting ourselves in the lead or few steps back? For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood,

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.

Robin Yates’s paper, “Pregnancy and Childbirth, The 1800’s vs. Now: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting,” was filled with many clear points on the advancement of labor and medicine since the 1800s. This essay was filled with interesting and grabbing facts; however, the structure of the essay needs more

Infant mortality is a major issue the world struggles with. Today, with advances in medicine and technology, the infant mortality rate decreases every year. However, in the past and in other developing countries, access to resources necessary to having and raising a healthy child are not available. In the article “Death Without Weeping”, the author, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, discusses about her time spent at Alto do Cruzeiro, Brazil. Hughes goes on to explain why the infant mortality rate was high in Alto do Cruzeiro. She also discusses how the women and children are treated in the community.

TITLE: FIRST NATIONS MIDWIFERY NAME: SALAM IFEJESU STUDENT NUMBER: 200356851 COURSE NAME: INHS 100 INSTRUCTOR: JULLIET. O. BUSHI INTRODUCTION Midwifery has been practiced in several communities of the world since time immemorial. A midwife is a trained person, mostly a woman, who assists in the pregnancy, delivery and post-partum care of an infant. In most countries of the world, the act of midwifery has been neglected for more modern and westernized medical practices deemed safer. In the First nations community, midwives have always been an integral part of the health system assisting expecting women during delivery. In the mid nineteenth and twentieth century, midwifery was outlawed in many communities and reserves ‘for the sake of the health of the country’ (Parkland Memorial Hospital School of Nurse Midwifery). With the outlaw of midwifery in First nation reserves, expectant mothers were transported to hospitals and clinics in urban centers for delivery. With this came several new challenges for expectant first nations women and mothers including, ‘increased maternal newborn complications, increased postpartum depression and decreased breast-feeding rates’ (O’Neil et al., 1990, Smith, 2002 and Klein et al., 2002a. The relegation of first nations midwifery has done more harm than good because it makes the birth process more medical, has led to the inflict of new post natal diseases and has led to the neglect of the traditional and spiritual roles in child

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

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?

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.

Most Americans associate hospitals to be the standard place where women can give birth. However, women did not always deliver in hospitals. Gynecology, the medical practice dealing with the female reproductive system, did not emerge until the early nineteenth century. Before doctors came along, women used to hire midwives to deliver babies in the comfort of their own homes. In this paper I will examine the social, political, and scientific implications of how giving birth has transitioned from being a midwife’s job into that of a doctor’s. Furthermore, I will attempt to show how these implications intersect together to make birth a feminist issue. To support my argument, I will be referencing Tina Cassidy’s “The Dawn of the Doctors,” Abby Epstein’s documentary film The Business of Being Born, and Eesha Pandit’s article “America’s secret history of forced sterilization: Remembering a disturbing and not-so-distant past.” I argue that the processes surrounding birth are intersectional feminist issues because they are often manipulated by male figures pursuing money and authority, which ultimately compromises women’s health and power of choice.

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

When I return to my New Mexican community as a midwife, I hope to influence practice through improving cultural competence in birth, improving health literacy in pregnancy/birth, and through increasing education and awareness of childbirth (natural childbirth, and other birthing options) and nutrition/exercise during pregnancy.

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.

In addition to its practical applications, the study has theoretical contributions for those seeking to understand indigenous medicine practices engrained in regional Maya culture. As a component to my overall research and analysis, I will produce a documentary highlighting indigenous caregivers, herbal medicines, and cultural medical beliefs. The documentary will be made available to local Guatemalan governmental agencies, NGOs, and JHU to promote prenatal global health awareness for indigenous communities.

In God’s Laboratory, Elizabeth Roberts argues that God and doctors have helped socioeconomically disadvantaged patients to receive certain reproductive technologies in contemporary Ecuador. As Roberts details, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and caesarean-section (C-section) are highly sought-after practices among Ecuadorian parents. Through these practices, otherwise infertile parents can have children and parents

This short film clearly demonstrated how culture influences a person since childhood, the easy a child can acclimate to their circumstance; babies cannot distinguish from been poor or wealthy. I was able to observe their smile of the babies from Nambia while they were playing with the rocks sitting in the floor playing with dirt and the babies from Magnolia where playing with animals, compare with the babies in USA and Japon, where their parents provides their babies with expensive clothing, strollers and are playing in playgrounds and sitting in clean floors inside their houses.