Part I: In the United States, having a baby at a hospital and going to monthly checkups has become so common that if a person chooses to not do so, she is told she is putting her baby at risk. Before reading and watching our required viewings this week, I did not realize how different cultures treated birth and pregnancy. One statistic that I thought was the most surprising was by de Jonge A., et al. and it was estimated that about 60.7% of Netherland women chose to give birth at home, rather than in a hospital. This being surprising only due to the fact that medical births are so common in the US. It was also fascinating that in this study, there was no calculated difference between home and hospital births regarding morality rate. This alone shows how medicalized the US is when it comes to anything like birth and death. In the film we watched, “The Mountain Midwives of Vietnam”, it was also clear to me that home births were more common as it was a cultural tradition to do so, and giving birth at a hospital was breaking this tradition. In this film, the producers are trying to talk these women who live within this culture to go to a district health center to decrease the morality rates of children and mothers.

In these two cultures, the Inuit in the Netherlands and Vietnam, are highly focused on their culture when it comes to birth and how their children are treated. For example, the reason the people in this village of Vietnam want to give birth at home is so they can bury their placenta under their bed in order for the child to have a good life and they also pour the child’s bath water in that hole for weeks after. This is different from the US as birth is not really seen as a cultural or traditional thing and more of an individual thing. This being said, this culture is also very different in the way their family functions. As we had seen in the film, the midwife had to ask the girls husband if she could take her to go to the health center to give birth and it is clear that the men have the most power in a family. This is a whole other dynamic than what we see in the US, as women make most of the decisions for themselves and their future child. This cultural significance is also present in the Netherland Inuit as they also use their religion and culture as a guide to birth and their children. They believe that their children are their reincarnated ancestors; so they wait a few days to see who this ancestor is and how they should be treated (what foods to give them, etc.). They also puts their children in a high place within the family, and lets them do as they want along as it is not dangerous, as being controlling would be disrespectful too their ancestor.

Further more, birth is very different depending on what cultural is present within an area. As for the US, medical births are way more common than it is within a community that is based on a religion or culture. This being said, these cultures and how birth is treated shows how families, women, etc. are treated. For these two cultures, the intuit in the Netherlands and Vietnam, women are less powerful compared to the men and family is much more important than having a child in a hospital. In other words, family is the source of their cultural beliefs.

Part II: This image is from a website called “The Hello Doctor”, where people go when they seek out a doctor’s recommendation. In this specific image, it is showing the dominant idea that a women needs to exercise during pregnancy for the baby to be healthy. Since it has become normalized for a pregnant women to regularly see a doctor, this need for exercise has become more popular. Although, exercise has been proven to help pregnancy, this image is also challenging the common ideal that pregnant women rest more than exercise do to the movements being too much for their body or being afraid of hurting their child.This common thought may be based upon how we see pregnancy in articles, movies, and such because women who are depicting pregnancy usually do not do any physical activity at all. Overall I think this image may lead to many women shaming other women who choose not to exercise during pregnancy as not everyone is perfect, and sometimes these women just can not workout because of pain or other medical reasons; these obstacles lead back to how birth has become so medical rather than personal.