Week 3 Blog Post

  • Part I 

The Inuit have been birthing children for thousands of years through strong cultural traditions that included training for midwives to assist in childbirth.  They have had successful births with positive outcomes for many generations.  They were forced into a medicalized birth process when the government started to force pregnant Inuit women to evacuate to the hospitals in southern Canada.  The women were removed from their family and their cultural traditions and were often alone for weeks on end surrounded by people that likely did not understand her culture or language.  When one community won the opportunity to keep the women home for the births with the assistance of trained midwives, the 20-year outcomes were the same as the women that were forced to evacuate to medical facilities.  In the case for the Inuit, the argument that medicalized birthing practices are better than their home births that are attended by trained midwives, is not founded.

The Hmong women often have their babies at home under the guidance of a family member that likely has little or no experience with helping to birth babies.  There are some Vietnamese women that have been trained to be midwives.  They are hoping to encourage the Hmong women to have their children in the medical center that is a relatively short distance away.  According to the film, “The Mountain Midwives of Vietnam”, the mortality rate is ten times higher there than in the rest of the country.  The hope of the midwives is to lower that statistic through more medicalized birthing practices.  Though it should be understood that by saying “medicalized” in this instance it is not what Americans think of, it simply means the presence of medical doctors and clean instruments.  The medical center in the film did not have an ultrasound machine.  It is very difficult to appeal to the Hmong women as they have long standing cultural traditions surrounding childbirth, specifically surrounding the care of the placenta. 

In the Netherlands, roughly 61% of the women plan to give birth at home were roughly 31% plan to have their child at a hospital.  The study presented by de Jonge, A., et al. indicated there is virtually no difference in positive outcomes in home births versus hospital births. 

In the United States births are extremely medicalized.  The current generations may be surprised to know that as recently as 1900, only 5% of the births took place in hospitals versus 98% of births occurring in hospitals by 1980 (Gabriel, 2019).  Today, Americans are conditioned to believe that births should take place in the clinical setting of a hospital.  Where women will be hooked up to monitoring systems and be surrounded by medical personal during the process.  Women have the option of receiving pain management during the birthing process as well.  The entire pregnancy experience is very clinical.  Conception dates and due dates are carefully managed.  There are benchmarks to be met with certain recommended tests ranging from invasive tests to ultrasound tests to constant monitoring of fluid levels, urine and blood.  Countless physical checks take place in the last weeks prior to the due date.  It is very clinical, and it can be very confusing and overwhelming.  Perhaps it is the overwhelming nature of the experience that convinces women that they should ONLY have their child within the walls of the hospital?  At birth, there can be upwards of twenty people in the delivery room.  Between nurses for mom and nurses for baby and, doctors and residents for both mom and baby, the standing room becomes crowded.  Often, that leaves little room for family members there to support the mother.  In my experience with this it is a strange dynamic of telling the mother they are “in charge” but largely telling them what they need to do medically.

The theoretical perspectives of de Jonge A., et al., that shared the breakdown of numbers reflecting home births versus hospital births in the Netherlands, can be an example of the epidemiological theory.  They noted that supportive services for home births are quite readily available for the maternity population.

Nick Ahlmark and Nicole Precel are the filmmakers that offered the film, “The Mountain Midwives of Vietnam”, depicts the desire of a trained midwife to have more Hmong births in a health center under medical supervision.  The woman featured as the midwife, Ying, wants to help to improve the 10 times higher mortality rate among the Hmong compared to other parts of the country.  Ahlmark and Precel demonstrate the interpretive theory.  The cultural background of the Hmong women plays an important role in their resistance to a more medicalized birth.

Betty-Anne Daviss, – “Heading Warnings from the Canary, the Whale and, the Inuit”.  Her theoretical perspective falls under the critical medical anthropological theory.  That the Inuit women that have no choice, they are forced by the government, to be evacuated to the south, should be able to have the choice to stay at their home.

Merilynne Rush was featured in “Home Funeral Discussed” where she discussed home funeral options.  She said she was a former midwife and felt that the next natural progression for herself was to look at home funerals and how to care for the bodies of the recently deceased.  Her theoretical perspective falls under the interpretive theory as she asks what meaning is attached to the funeral practices.

Gabriel, Cynthia, Ph.D. “Birth and Death Cross-culturally.” Women and Health. May 23, 2019.  Accessed July 20, 2019. http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp270-us19/lecture-videos/birth-and-death-cross-culturally/.               

  • Part II

This is a stock photo found online.  This image reinforces the dominant ideas about birth in America.  Here you see a woman, on her back, hooked up to several fetal monitors, a blood pressure cuff for herself, with medical personal at her bedside.  Other things you might expect to see in a room like this is an IV pole with an IV port in the expectant mother and a possible catheter, if mom has chosen to have an epidural.  It’s very clinical and very medical.  Mom is portrayed with a smile on her face because she is feeling safe in the hands of the medical personal and the monitors.  This reinforcement of the dominant idea that birth should be medicalized and is safer because you are choosing to have it in a hospital where things are very clean, and they are prepared for the “worst case scenario”.  Mom can have an expectation of little pain if she chooses to have an epidural. 

What it does not depict is that it is perfectly natural for a woman to be able to walk around and move around to help baby move along naturally.  When a woman is stuck in bed, on her back with lines and tubes and monitors it puts her body in one of the most awkward positions to birth a child.  But it does make her dependent on people to help her.  Which is something that goes hand in hand with the dominant idea of birth in America.  The idea that a woman needs help and therefore must be in a hospital setting to get the best help available for her and her baby.

2 thoughts on “Week 3 Blog Post

  1. Hello, I also agree that birth has been made to seem as if it should only happen in a hospital. The whole pregnancy process is also very medicalized. I liked your point that when doctors tell the mother they have all control, they really do not regarding medical issues. One question I have is why have medical births become custom to the US? Do you think it is for the money or the safety of births? I ask this because we are 27th in infant mortality, so it is confusing as to why medical births are so forced in the US (lecture 3.2). I personally think birth is so medicalized because a huge profit comes from it, as births alone profit a lot of money every year. Regarding the image you had chosen, I agree as well that the smile on this women’s face means she feels safe as she is in medical care. However, I think another position we could take while looking at this photo is that she has to stay in bed because the babies position is not right, or if she moves in the wrong way, something could go wrong. However, as I have not had a child or seen this process before, these are assumptions made from no prior experience.

    • I often find myself asking the same questions about how medicalized our birthing process is and why we go to this point. I agree with you and I do believe it is about the profit. In addition to that, the current generation that is of childbearing age may not be aware of other birth options. Assuming they were born in a hospital in this medicalized way, they literally have been a part of the medicalization from the moment of birth. Also, as Americans, I feel we tend to dwell on the negative. We explain things in terms of “worst case scenario” and that can cause fear where perhaps none should be present. I recently spoke to my daughter-in-law about her birth experience. She ended up with a C-section after 26 hours of induced labor. She and her son are fine, and I am thankful for the medical interventions that helped them to both go home healthy. She was shocked when I was speaking to her about how women give birth in other parts of the world. We specifically spoke about the unnatural position of being on your back delivering.

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