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The American Discourse Around Childbirth Pain Management

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The American discourse around childbirth pain management includes mostly narcotic pain killers, epidurals and other sources of pain medication while the Middle Eastern discourse around labor pain management includes meditation, herbal substances and breathing exercises. This is important because America’s attitude towards hospitals and doctors is so trusting that we don’t stop and think about what we are putting into our bodies and we blindly accept what they are giving us because it is considered, for the majority, culturally acceptable. Many Middle Eastern women on the other hand, are not allowed to see male doctors, therefore they give birth solely with the help of midwives who have little access to medication and can only help through…show more content…
She would rather have been given a simple list of medications she could potentially get, and how they were to be administered. (Kathryn 2007) Being a new mother she did not understand what class she signed up for. This is why she believes that the instructor was not providing accurate information and she displays this by saying “surely they were kidding”.
Brittany is a mother of three; she is a certified doula nurse and a certified Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis Instructor. She is also working on certification as a Dancing For Birth TM instructor. Brittany is an American but practices the Middle Eastern way in order to help herself, and others through childbirth. More than three out of five women (63.4 percent) whose births were attended by a medical doctor or a doctor of osteopathic medicine (62.5 percent) received epidural/spinal anesthesia compared with less than one in two women attended by a certified nurse midwife (49.8 percent). (CDC 2015) She falls under the percent of people that choose not to take medication for pain, but she also distinguishes herself by using primarily Middle Eastern techniques. Some of the techniques that Brittany likes to use and teach are “hip circles,” “hula dancing,” “belly dancing,” as well as various other types of dancing from the Middle East. She uses the term “Raks Sharki” instead of “belly dancing” because she finds
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