The country I am researching throughout the duration of this class is Kenya. In my research this week, I am researching the question, What are the expectations of childbirth from a man and women in kenyan culture?

In American culture, we expect the man to look after the woman during her pregnancy and take care of her. For a woman, we expect her to take care of her body and the child. But what are these roles and responsibilities like in Kenyan Culture. 

In a Kenyan News Article, Being pregnant in Kenya is hard, dangerous and very expensive, By Caroline Njunge, she discusses the hardships Kenyan Mothers already face when it comes to pregnancy. According to the article, Kenya has only 349 obstetrician/gynaecologists and just one obstetrician-oncologist registered but There were 948,351 births in 2017. So while Kenyan mothers are already struggling to get the care they need, they face other struggles when it comes to gender roles and identity in the Pregnancy and Childbirth process.

One main issue with childbirth and pregnancy involving gender I found was disrespect and abuse during child birth. According to a Journal Article called  Exploring the Prevalence of Disrespect and Abuse during Childbirth in Kenya,  One out of five women experienced feeling humiliated during labor and delivery. 

This imposes risks during the whole pregnancy for many women. According to this study, during childbirth women in kenya faced physical abuse, non-consensual care, non-dignified care, verbal abuse, discrimination towards poor and young mothers, abandonment of women during and after labor, and detention in facilities because of inability to pay. In a different study, Perspectives of men on antenatal and delivery care service utilisation in rural western Kenya: a qualitative study, men had positive attitudes of antenatal and delivery care. As decision makers they often encouraged or made their wives/partners to inquire antenatal or delivery care. While they had these attitudes, few practiced this unless there were complication. There are many gender based barriers to pregnancy and childbirth in Kenya, one being that females took on roles in pregnancy support and the male was to be a provider and there were negative health care worker attitudes towards men’s participation in the pregnancy.

Abuya, Timothy, Charlotte E. Warren, Nora Miller, Rebecca Njuki, Charity Ndwiga, Alice Maranga, Faith Mbehero, Anne Njeru, and Ben Bellows. “Exploring the Prevalence of Disrespect and Abuse during Childbirth in Kenya.” PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science. Accessed July 13, 2019. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0123606.

N’junge, Caroline. “Being Pregnant in Kenya Is Hard, Dangerous.” Daily Nation, April 30, 2018. https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Being-pregnant-in-Kenya-is-hard–dangerous-/1056-4536722-19thsq/index.html.

Kwambai, Titus K, Stephanie Dellicour, Meghna Desai, Charles A Ameh, Bobbie Person, Florence Achieng, Linda Mason, Kayla F Laserson, and Feiko O Ter Kuile. “Perspectives of Men on Antenatal and Delivery Care Service Utilisation in Rural Western Kenya: a Qualitative Study.” BMC pregnancy and childbirth. BioMed Central, June 21, 2013. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3691751/.