This week, I will give my analysis on childbirth and death in China and how the culture beliefs affect childbirth in China. I also uses the American belief and Japenese belief to compare Chinese belief to explore my explanations in today’s post. In Susan Long’s article(Long, 2004), Cultural scripts for a good death in Japan and the United States: similarities and differences, I found most of the discussion about the good death in Japan are also analytical with the cultural scripts in China. “When they spoke about choice, timing, place and person, their focus was often on different issues and metaphors.” The scripts of death in both China and Japan has shown their cultural concepts about the choice, timing, place and person of the meaning of death. In another way, the multiple scripts of dying included some related topic from God and Christains. 

In my opinion, this situation can be interpreted as the difference caused by the influence of historical background and religious influences. Throughout China and Japan, local religions and Buddhism were the most influential religion, not Christian (which just developed missionary activities in modern times). In Long’s article (2004), he also discussed about national identity related with death. The same is that China is a nation of group-dependent like Japan. Compared with the public’s pursuit of personal heroism, Chinese are more willing to be collectively recognized person in their community. They also maintain this idea when they treat people’s death. 

According to the article, Traditional beliefs and practices in pregnary, childbirth and postpartum: a review of the evidence from Asian countries(2017), the researchers found that most people put their focus on dietary recommendations and behavioral taboos in China. This situation caused the largest proportion of the world’s maternal death. In their thinking mode, pregnant women are seen as vulnerable and dependent. There are some extreme cases in rural areas where people are not allowed to go outside often. Pregnant women need to lie in bed and eat a lot of high-carbohydrate and high-fat diet to maintain the baby’s nutrition intake. Therefore, obesity in pregnant women has become an important cause of fetal overgrowth during childbirth which lead to dystocia and death in both mother and child.

However, the more serious thing is the impact on the mother after childbirth. Raitisoja(2017) discussed that the sitting month is the most difficult situation that chinese mother need to face. “For thirty days after childbirth, the woman is expected to stay in bed and not do any heavy work, including housework.” This situation actually happened to my nephew in law. She didn’t wash her hair for 30 days under my aunt’s advice. All this information comes from the inheritance of previous experiences and habits, and has not been proven by any research or studies. In addition, In addition, the severity of postpartum depression is often ignored by family members. Many pregnant women choose to commit suicide when they are unable to withstand the pressure of life for them when they are confined. 

Reference:

Long, S., P. 2004. Cultural scripts for a good death in Japan and the United States: Similarities and differences. Social Science and Medicine, 58, 913-928

Raitisoja G. 2017. Traditional chinese beliefs about pregnancy and childbirth. Gbtimes.com. https://gbtimes.com/traditional-chinese-beliefs-about-pregnancy-and-childbirth

Withers M, Kharazmi N, & Lim E. 2017. Traditional beliefs and practices in pregnary, childbirth and postpartum: a review of the evidence from Asian countries. Midwifery, Vol 56, 158-170