tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72941926037258580812024-03-13T13:25:20.142+00:00Pregnancy and childbirth around the world“How do people in other countries do this?” is the question that kept occurring to me as <br>I stumbled through my first experience of reproduction.
I decided to find out the answer. <br>Join me in my search.Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-75368470513897016092012-09-26T12:05:00.002+01:002012-09-26T21:04:54.499+01:00#25 Taking Stock<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> A surprising amount of you are superstitious and interested in hyenas....</span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have been blogging intermittently for about a year now, and have written a grand total of 24 posts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like most bloggers I enjoy looking at the stats to see what people are reading and where these people come from. There is something quite amazing and exciting to log in and and see that at that very moment someone over in the Philippines or Australia is reading my blog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what do the stats tell me you interested in? </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The top three posts in terms of reader numbers are;</span></div>
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#20 Pregnancy superstitions around the world (a clear winner) </h3>
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<a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/20-pregnancy-superstitions.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/20-pregnancy-superstitions.html</span></a></div>
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#5 Getting a flat stomach after birth </h3>
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<a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/getting-flat-stomach-after-birth.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/getting-flat-stomach-after-birth.html</span></a></div>
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#15 Pity the hyena mother (an unexpected hit!)</h3>
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<a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/15-pity-hyena-mother.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/15-pity-hyena-mother.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">If I could find some material about superstitious hyenas getting their shape back maybe that would really hit the spot!</span> </strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Other popular posts include:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>#1 Pregnant or breastfeeding for 30 years</strong>, my very first post </span><a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/pregnant-or-breastfeeding-for-30-years.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/pregnant-or-breastfeeding-for-30-years.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>#11 Would you have an affair to get pregnant?</strong> </span><a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/11-would-you-have-affair-to-get.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/11-would-you-have-affair-to-get.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>#23 Nipple stimulation in childbirth - does it work?</strong> A recently added post seems to be gaining popularity </span><a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/24-nipple-stimulation-in-childbirth.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/24-nipple-stimulation-in-childbirth.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can also tell you that people are not as interested as I thought they might be in;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>#9 Grass Hut Ceseareans</strong> </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7294192603725858081#editor/target=post;postID=7141900427892493707"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7294192603725858081#editor/target=post;postID=7141900427892493707</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> (which I personally think is fascinating (!) about Cesearean type operation being performed in the Uganda in 1879 before it was done successfully in Europe) or</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>#19 Stress and Infertility</strong> </span><a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/19-stress-infertility.html"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/19-stress-infertility.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> which is about remedies for infertility found in other cultures which may deal with the stress of infertility. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In terms of the readers, the vast majority of you come from the UK and the USA, however, lots of readers also come from Canada, India, The Philippines, Australia and Malaysia. All countries where English is spoken widely - maybe all bloggers writing in English will find that these are the main places where their blogs are read.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Thanks for comments and following so far, its always nice to get feedback on what you think. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">So I will keep writing, I hope you keep reading! </span></div>
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Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-31745078055010341622012-08-25T21:11:00.021+01:002012-09-12T09:04:12.401+01:00#24 Nipple stimulation in childbirth - does it work?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Nipple stimulation has been used around the world for centuries to bring on labour</em> </span></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don’t think I can be the only one who was incredulous the first time I heard that nipple stimulation can be a good way of getting labour going. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was a definite snigger around the room at the antenatal class as we sat there absorbing this ‘titillating’ piece of information. <strong>We had been hoping to hear about medical advances and scientific methods that would help us in childbirth, not something as simple, available and sexual as nipple stimulation.</strong> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After my initial surprise I was quite quick to discard this piece of advice, imagining that it would be unlikely to be effective, and that it probably wouldn't be what I felt like doing in the early stages of labour.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, since embarking on my research I find that I may have been wrong to dismiss this idea so quickly. A number of cultures around the world have independently come up with this strategy. </span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For example the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Lepcha</span></strong>, a rice-farming group that live in the Himalayas, and the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Siriono</span></strong>, hunter-gathers from the Amazonian rain forest, although from different continents and totally different ways of life, have in common a relaxed attitude towards sex and a lack of inhibition about their bodies, and both cultures use nipple stimulation to speed labour. The Siriono also seem to realise that orgasms stimulate the uterus to contract, and women with intermittent labour may have sex to try to encourage their labour to start in earnest.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unknown to the cultures involved, nipple stimulation causes a reaction in the brain and a release of a hormone called oxytocin which is responsible for causing the cervix to dilate. Often artificial oxytocin is given intravenously to speed up contractions in labour wards across the Western world, but nipple stimulation is also now suggested as a less intrusive option to induce labour or get a slow labour going. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like being upright during childbirth, this may be another area where we can learn from current non-Western practises. And just like being upright in childbirth, it also was practised in Europe before male doctors took over the process of managing childbirth from female midwives - there are historical references to nipple stimulation in labour going back to the 18<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries in Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, does nipple stimulation actually work?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that it certainly works for some women. You only have to Google ‘nipple stimulation’ and you’ll find many accounts by women who are very happy to share their nipple stimulation success stories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fact that many different cultures around the world have come up with this also suggests that it must be effective sometimes.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, reading through the studies and journals about whether nipple stimulation really is an effective method of speeding delivery, the results are unsatisfyingly inconclusive. Studies have looked at various techniques, such as using a breast pump (the idea being to simulate an infant suckling), or even a husband/partner (not sure what the idea is)!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BOGGA4C3NuY/UE-eeOhOrjI/AAAAAAAAAWA/Yb_HwFCvnAg/s1600/04-induction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="131" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BOGGA4C3NuY/UE-eeOhOrjI/AAAAAAAAAWA/Yb_HwFCvnAg/s200/04-induction.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xxc2OV_Xygo/UE-eicHL8vI/AAAAAAAAAWI/BlrjUQ1I5_o/s1600/nipple+stimualation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xxc2OV_Xygo/UE-eicHL8vI/AAAAAAAAAWI/BlrjUQ1I5_o/s1600/nipple+stimualation.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or this?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the problems in testing this method seems to be finding sufficient numbers of willing volunteers to take part in such a study (many women who say they will be happy to try nipple stimulation understandably change their minds when the moment comes and events unfold in a different way to how they had imagined). Another problem is agreeing what counts as nipple stimulation, is it 5 minutes stimulation every 15 minutes, or 1 minute every 5 minutes? And a further problem is making sure that all women were at the same point of cervical ripeness at the start of the procedure. All in all, it is understandably a challenging area to test. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the many studies undertaken, some found nipple stimulation to be as effective as artificial intravenous oxytocin in establishing labour, others didn’t…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wonder if in non-Western societies where there is no artificial intravenous alternative, where without gadgets women are more used to using touch and sensation in their experience pregnancy and childbirth, and where a slow and difficult labour could very well be life-threatening, the effectiveness of nipple stimulation might be more obvious. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong> * * *</strong> </span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span></o:p> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> If you would like to find out more, take a look at</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ed Richardson, SA and Guttmacher, A (1967) <i>Childbearing – its social and psychological aspects</i> The Williams and Wilkins Company</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2198350" title="The Journal of reproductive medicine."><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">J Reprod Med</span>.</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 1990 Jul;35(7):710-4. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Nipple stimulation for labor augmentation. </span></span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Stein%20JL%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=2198350"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Stein JL</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Bardeguez%20AD%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=2198350"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bardeguez AD</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Verma%20UL%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=2198350"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Verma UL</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Tegani%20N%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=2198350"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tegani N</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10687576" title="Birth (Berkeley, Calif.)."><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Birth.</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;"> 1999 Jun;26(2):115-22. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">A comparison of breast stimulation and intravenous oxytocin for the augmentation of labor. </span></span></span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Curtis%20P%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=10687576"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Curtis P</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Resnick%20JC%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=10687576"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Resnick JC</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Evens%20S%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=10687576"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Evens S</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Thompson%20CJ%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=10687576"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thompson CJ</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16034897" title="Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online)."><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cochrane Database Syst Rev.</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;"> 2005 Jul 20;(3):CD003392. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Breast stimulation for cervical ripening and induction of labour. </span></span></span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Kavanagh%20J%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=16034897"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kavanagh J</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Kelly%20AJ%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=16034897"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kelly AJ</span></span></a><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Thomas%20J%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=16034897"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thomas J</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-50903404186769540052012-08-20T15:04:00.002+01:002012-09-12T09:18:03.115+01:00#23 'Childbirth Myths' article published!<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hooray! I've had an article published as a result of this blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The article is called called<strong> 'Childbirth</strong> <strong>myths around the world'</strong> and it appears in "<strong>Midwives</strong>" which is the magazine for the Royal College of Midwives. <a href="http://www.rcm.org.uk/midwives/">http://www.rcm.org.uk/midwives/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The article is a double spread with a great illustration - have a look at pages 42/43 in: </span><br />
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<a href="http://issuu.com/redactive/docs/midwives-412?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222?http://issuu.com/redactive/docs/midwives-412?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://issuu.com/redactive/docs/midwives-412?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222?http://issuu.com/redactive/docs/midwives-412?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222</span></a>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-21595468855036921122012-05-09T12:38:00.003+01:002012-09-11T22:02:25.934+01:00#22 Does 9 months of "eating for two" give you a bigger baby or a bigger bum?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><strong><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Women in some cultures near starve themselves during pregnancy in hope of giving birth to a smaller baby that is safer to deliver</em></strong></span></span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What’s one of the first thing people say to you once you’re pregnant? After the initial congratulations, often the next reaction along with your celebratory cup of tea is encouragement to eat more, saying “Go on, have another biscuit, now that you’re eating for two”. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our culture’s obsession with feeding up pregnant women probably relates back to the days when food was scarce. But food is not so scarce these days, in fact for most of us it’s more than plentiful! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">The current NHS advice specifically says “you don’t have to eat for two” during pregnancy.</span></strong> Making sure you eat sufficient vitamins and minerals while pregnant is now recognised as more important than extra food. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Exact figures vary, but it seems that for the first six months of pregnancy you don’t need any extra calories as your body becomes more efficient, and for the final three months just an extra 200-300 calories per day are needed (equivalent to a couple of slices of toast, or one Mars Bar).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That’s really very little excuse to be putting our hands in the cookie jar too often. It also explains why even in famine conditions women are able to produce babies.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If this very modest extra calorie requirement were more widely known, would it change our eating habits during pregnancy? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cultural attitudes are hard to shift, and “eating for two” is a phrase that (despite its inaccuracy) is part of our psyche – it trips of the tongue unthinkingly by anyone and everyone. <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Until someone comes up with a nifty equivalent phrase that sums up “no extra food needed during pregnancy until the last three months and even then you don’t even need that much” I think it will be around for a long while yet.</span></strong> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was interested to know; Does the amount you eat during pregnancy affect the size of your baby? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The general consensus seems to be that unless a woman is severely under or over eating, how much she eats during pregnancy does not really affect the baby’s birth weight. The average weight gain in the UK is 11kg, but putting on more weight doesn’t mean the baby will be larger at birth, and putting on less weight won’t create a smaller baby (unless the gain is less than 7kg, although it does depend whether the mother was over or underweight to start with). <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is this weight gain made up of? (These are approximate figures)<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: currentColor; margin: auto auto auto 36pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border: 1pt solid windowtext; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Baby<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: windowtext windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid solid solid none; border-width: 1pt 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3-4 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Placenta<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Amniotic fluid<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Increased maternal blood volume<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Increased maternal fluid in tissues<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1.5 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Uterine enlargement<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Breast enlargement<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">0.5 kg<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span> </>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 231.05pt;" valign="top" width="385"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Total<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></><td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 100.4pt;" valign="top" width="167"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>10-11kg</strong> <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></td><><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tr>
<><><><><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, in some developing countries where women start off their pregnancy severely undernourished, their diet during pregnancy can affect the birth weight of their baby. I have read about some women who put on as little as 3kg during pregnancy. Their babies will have a seriously low birth weight. Low birth weight in this scenario is associated with many health problems, and is a common cause of early infant death in the non-Western world. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">However without realising the problems of low birth weight in their babies, women in some cultures are so concerned with surviving the ordeal of childbirth that they actually eat very little on purpose.</span></strong> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is called ‘eating down’. The women hope that by eating less they will have a smaller baby that will be easier to deliver. This has been observed around the world. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Among the cattle-herding <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Masai</span></strong> of southern Kenya </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>“during the last 3 or 4 months of pregnancy the women abandons her normal diet and exists on a near starvation diet, consisting primarily of broth of lungs, liver, and kidneys, cooked with a bitter bark. The last month, she drinks only milk”.</em> While these are common foods for Masai they would normally be eating plentiful porridge, grain and beans as well. </span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Bangladesh</strong> </span>pregnant women are encouraged not to eat too much so that their baby will be small and more likely to be born without difficulty.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Other cultures across the world (the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Enga</span></strong> of Papua New Guinea, the rural <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Malays</span></strong>, the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Ainu</span> </strong>of Japan and the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Maya</span></strong> from Guatemala) try to achieve the same objective through encouraging pregnant women to work hard and do lots of heavy physical exercise in the last few months of pregnancy, rather than by eating less. Similarly in Nepal women are aware that smoking stunts a baby’s growth, so some women intentionally continue to smoke during pregnancy in the hope of producing a smaller baby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The long term impact of ‘eating down’ is unclear, but there is some evidence to show that the baby’s birth weight may only be slightly affected, but the mother suffers as the baby’s nutritional demands are met from her meagre stores.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><em>(For balance I should also say that in many other non-Western cultures women are given extra food during pregnancy and their food cravings are satisfied.)</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">So the answer to my initial question seems to be, it all depends where you're starting from. For the majority of us who are not undernourished to start off with, yes, eating for two will give us a bigger bum at the end of the pregnancy!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>* * *</strong> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more, take a look at;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Devries, M <strong>‘Cry babies, culture and catastrophe: Infant temperament among the Masai’</strong> in ed Scheper-Hughes, N (1987) <em><strong>Anthropological approaches to the treatment and maltreatment of children</strong> </em>Dordrecht : Reidel<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Enga Birth, Maturation and Survival: Physiological Characteristics of the Life Cycle in the New Guinea Highlands in </span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Ed MacCormack, Carol P (1982) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Ethnography of Fertility and Birth</i></b> Academic Press : New York<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Editors Richardson, SA and Guttmacher, A (1967) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Childbearing – its social and psychological aspects</i> </b>The Williams and Wilkins Company<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (1999) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Mother Nature; A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection</i></b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>United States of America : Pantheon Books<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-42928056682848616812012-03-28T14:04:00.000+01:002012-05-09T12:39:07.129+01:00#21 Don't change your bedding on unlucky days<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><strong>FACT OF THE DAY:</strong></u> <strong> <em>Women in Hong Kong, China, are encouraged to follow a list of over 75 superstitions during pregnancy, believed to protect them and their baby</em></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the last post I described some of the more extreme pregnancy superstitions found around the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From what I’ve read, generally the more Westernised (and medicalised) a culture, the fewer the number of superstitions that are followed, in daily life as well as during pregnancy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But it seems this is not always the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ve been reading a fascinating account of the superstitions that are still going strong in Hong Kong, even among women who are receiving Western obstetric care.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently Chinese culture has records of antenatal taboos going back to AD265-316 and their attitude is that it is the pregnant woman’s duty to safeguard the health and safety of the foetus by following a huge range of dietary and behavioural taboos. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The authors of the study describe how many of these women are caught between two worlds with very different attitudes to looking after their unborn baby the best they can. They are under great pressure from their mothers and other older relatives to obey this long list of pregnancy taboos, whereas many of the women themselves believe they will give their babies the best possible chance by attending Western antenatal screening and health checks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There seems to be little overlap between the Western pregnancy advice and the traditional superstitions. It would be rather neat if they coincided, but actually many of the behaviours on the list would seem unfounded from our point of view – such as no hugging children, or no using scissors in bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is particularly tricky when advice from the two different worlds conflict. For example Western advice recommends regular exercise during pregnancy, whereas according to the traditional Chinese taboos, a pregnant woman is expected to avoid exertion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During this study (done in 2005) they interviewed 827 pregnant women, and from these interviews came up with a list of 75 antenatal superstitions or taboos that were commonly mentioned. These ranged from “only changing bedding on lucky days” to “not eating snake”. They then asked the women to say whether or not they had kept to the superstition. (<strong>I have attached the table at the end of the post).</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was interested to see that nearly all the women in the sample were pretty well educated, 62% had attended 11 years of education and a further 17% had gone on to university education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Clearly some of these superstitions are easier to keep to than others. The taboos most commonly followed included;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">not drinking herbal tea (91%) </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">not moving heavy objects (84%)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">not wearing high-heeled shoes (84%) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Other taboos that were also strongly observed included no hammering of nails, no wall drilling, and no dismantling/moving beds (66-69%). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taboos that were least commonly practiced were;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">only change bedding on lucky days (11%)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">avoid travelling in bumpy vehicles (15%)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">do not break soy sauce containers (19%) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">do not use broken bowls or cups (24%)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apart from it being interesting that there is such a huge range of superstitions that modern day Hong Kong women take seriously (it makes our reluctance not to have the pram in the house before the baby is born seem quite moderate!), the people doing the study also found some other interesting results;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Firstly they were interested to know why the women followed these taboos despite their education and understanding of alternative obstetric care.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reasons for obeying these superstitions were as follows;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">488 participants (59%) said it was for the sake of the baby’s health and safety</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">114 participants (14%) said it was so that the family would not be worried. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">171 participants (21%) said they observed the taboos for their own sake<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From it seems that most of the women must believe to some degree that not following the taboos could put them or their babies at risk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Secondly they wanted to know how these taboos affected the women, and sadly it is not so positive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">220 (26%) felt unhappy about the restrictions and </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">80 (10%) had argued with the family regarding the observation of the taboos<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In fact one of their conclusions was that these superstitions were a cause of stress and depression for about a quarter of the women, who felt they had to follow them to keep their families happy, but resented doing so. Interestingly, the women who felt unhappy about following these superstitions or who had argued with their families about them were found to have significantly higher levels of depression at 32 weeks gestation and after birth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana;">"What harm can it do?" is something you quite often hear said about superstitions. However for many of these womens superstitions or taboos are not harmless, but are actually affecting their health in a negative way.</span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As the author says;</span></div>
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<em><strong>“On the one hand Hong Kong women are highly urbanized and economically independent; on the other hand they continue to be governed by [traditions] that put their personal welfare behind those of their families and children.<o:p></o:p></strong></em></blockquote>
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<em><strong> Taboos in pregnancy seem to define health in an essentially negative way. The various prohibitions imposed upon pregnant women may intensify their anxiety in addition to the stress brought about by pregnancy itself... When the taboos are imposed by older members of the family, the inter-generational dispute can also put other family members, such as partners and in-laws, under stress.”<o:p></o:p></strong></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> If you would like to read more, take a look at;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lee, Dominic TS et al (2009) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Antenatal taboos among Chinese women in Hong Kong</i></b> Midwifery (2009) 25, 104-113<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-36364130173954659602012-03-07T11:45:00.008+00:002012-03-28T14:05:33.003+01:00#20 Pregnancy superstitions around the world<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Are you superstitious?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even though I think of myself as a rational person with a scientific approach to life, I still can’t help following superstitions which I know to be totally ridiculous - I admit to feeling slightly uncomfortable if I have to walk under a ladder. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And during pregnancy I probably gave in to my superstitions more than normal. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In our culture <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">we </span>seem to be particularly driven by<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> the fear of tempting fate during pregnancy, for example not bringing the cot or pram into the house before the baby is actually born.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Would you walk under this ladder?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the 1950s we would have followed even more; we would have stopped knitting during pregnancy and we would have avoided hanging up the washing or lifting our arms above our heads for fear of the umbilical cord getting wrapped around the baby. Nowadays these old wives tales have mostly disappeared. M<span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">y theory is that the number and strength of superstitious beliefs decreases with improved scientific understanding.</span></span> (Mind you, few of us knit these days and most of us use a tumble dryer…)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In many non-Western cultures there are still an enormous number of superstitions about what a pregnant woman should or shouldn’t do. In the absence of any other knowledge, superstitions are a way of taking care of themselves and protecting their babies. In some ways it is similar to us following the advice we receive from our doctors. (In fact I do think that some dietary advice is the modern equivalent of a superstition. If something bad happens then you might blame it on that one peanut you ate, or that extra glass of wine you had once, but in reality it may be nothing more than a coincidence).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is not surprising that pregnancy is an area rife for superstition. It’s a long old time between conception and birth (speaking from experience it can seem like an eternity waiting to know how everything is going to turn out) and our babies grow behind closed doors. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With Western medicine we do get to peep behind those doors in a manner of speaking; we see a blue line to confirm our pregnancy, we hear the reassuring woosh-woosh, woosh-woosh of our baby’s heartbeat, and with ultrasounds we even get to see inside maybe two or three times before the baby is born. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But without these tools, women know very little about how their unborn baby is developing and what's going on behind those closed doors. I am sure this is why so many superstitions have devoloped. They are a way of explaining the complications and misfortunes or pregnancy and childbirth.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The huge number of superstitions might suggest that pregnant women live in a very fearful state trying to keep to all these rules. For some women they provide reassurance, while other women carry on as normal and these superstitions are more commonly thought about after birth to provide retrospective explanations for any problems that occurred. A <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Maisin</u></b> woman from Papua New Guinea whose baby is born with the cord around its neck may then remember having walked through a spider’s web during her pregnancy, rather than spending the whole pregnancy trying to avoid walking through spider webs. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here are a few common themes found around the world;<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">AVOIDING ACTIONS THAT MIGHT SYMBOLISE A BLOCKAGE OR GETTING STUCK<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Minangkabau</u></b> of Indonesia have a long list of actions that a woman should or shouldn’t do when pregnant in order to ensure an easy birth including “She shouldn’t sit in a door entrance or gateway because then the baby may find it difficult to come out, if she goes down to the river to bathe she mustn’t come back until she is finished, if she’s forgotten something she shouldn’t come back to the house for it as this could delay delivery.” Similar superstitions about avoiding sitting in doorways or steps are found in Malaysia and across Indonesia, while <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Thai </u></b>women </span>eat lotus buds which have been chanted over by a Buddhist monk so that their bodies will open up like a lotus flower and they will give birth easily, and if someone fells a tree or puts something in the path of a pregnant <u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Karen</b> </u>woman (Thailand) they must give the woman a chicken in recompense, otherwise the birth might be obstructed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>AVOIDANCE OF ECLIPSES</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Latin America it is said that the sun and the moon, particularly when eclipsed, can deform an unborn child. In <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Guatemala</u> </b>expectant mothers shouldn’t go outside at midday when the sun is at its highest, nor should they look at an eclipsed moon, or point at a rainbow as doing any of these could cause abnormalities in the baby. The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Tarahumara</u></b>, one of the largest indigenous groups of Mexico, believe that deformities such as cleft lip or club foot are caused by the expectant mother looking at an eclipsed sun or moon – their explanation being that the sun or moon is annoyed at being eclipsed, and ‘eats’ part of the foetus in revenge. In <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Malaysia</u></b> pregnant women supposedly lived in fear of a lunar eclipse which brings unnamed terrors in its wake, and in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Thailand</u></b> women believed that if they saw an eclipse the child might be born with a squint or to have a misshapen mouth resembling the eclipsed sun or moon. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD CONTROL THEIR EMOTIONS, REMAINING CALM AND GENTLE AT ALL TIMES</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This superstition may actually be medically beneficial as research supports the idea that a mother’s emotions can affect the baby’s environment, and that in particular stress and trauma increase the mother’s heart rate as well as affecting blood flow to the placenta and hormone production, all of which can negatively affect foetal functioning. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An expectant <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Balinese</u></b> woman should behave with a pure heart at all times, a pregnant <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Guatemalan</u></b> is required to avoid all strong negative emotions such as anger, fright or sadness and to maintain an emotional equilibrium to avoid a miscarriage, a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Beng</u></b> woman (West Africa) is told that her actions during pregnancy will affect her baby’s character so that if she is good her baby will be good, but if she steals something, then her baby will be become a thief. In <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Egypt</u></b> this ideal is advantageous to women as the general belief is that the mother’s emotional state affects the baby’s comfort in her womb, and that if she is unhappy she may suffer a miscarriage and so husbands are expected to treat their wives especially well during pregnancy. In <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Thailand</u></b> it is believed that every sound, sight, touch, taste, smell, thought and action experienced by the mother will have some reaction on the child so she takes every opportunity to associate herself with objects and people which have a positive effect on the child and with words and actions which imply success giving birth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD NOT LOOK AT UGLY OR DEFORMED PEOPLE OR ANIMALS AND THEY SHOULD AVOID ILLNESS OR DEATH, INSTEAD THEY SHOULD SURROUND THEMSELVES BY BEAUTY AND LIFE</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Akan</u></b> expectant mothers from Ghana must avoid looking at blood, monkeys, other ugly animals and even ugly carvings, and along with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Jamaican</u></b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Beng</u></b> mothers must avoid seeing a human or animal corpse, and many <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>North American Indian</u></b> mothers were meant to avoid seeing any ugly or dead animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Nigerian</u> </b>mother is encouraged to avoid places where people fight and quarrel so that her baby is peace-loving, and no ugly or wicked person should walk behind a pregnant women. A pregnant <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Saami</u></b> (Lapland) woman is not meant to see anything ugly or be startled, and no one is supposed to even talk about deformed children, childbirth or reindeer calving in her presence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are even more superstitions about diet, but I'll leave those for another day.</span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana;">* * *</span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more, take a look at;</span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jacqueline Vincent-Priya<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1991) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birth Without Doctors: Conversations with Traditional Midwives</i> </b>London : Earthscan Publications</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Warren, Dennis M. (1975) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Techiman-Bobo of Ghana: an ethnography of an Akan society</i> </b>Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Itkonen, Toivo Immanuel (1948)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lapps in Finland up to 1945. Vol. 2</i> </b>Porvoo, Helsinki: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tietjen, AM (1984) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infant care and feeding practices and the beginnings of socialisation among the Maisin of Papua New Guinea</i></b> Ecology of Food and Nutrition Vol 15 p39-48</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oakley, A in Chard, T and Richards, M<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>(1977) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cross-cultural practices </i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Benefits and Hazards of the new obstetrics</b> </i>William Heinemann Medical Books : London</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ed MacCormack, Carol P (1982) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethnography of Fertility and Birth</i></b> Academic Press : New York</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hobart, A Ramseyer, U and Leemann, A (2001) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Peoples of Bali</i></b> Blackwell Publishers Ltd : Oxford<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">DeLoache, J. & Gottlieb, A (2000) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A world of babies; Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>New York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambridge University Press</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Margarita Artschwager Kay (1982) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anthropology of Human Birth</i> </b>F.A. Davis Company : USA</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ed Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1987) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Child Survival</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Reidel Publishing Company ; Dordrecht Holland<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-42103007550021204252012-02-13T10:23:00.004+00:002012-03-07T11:47:56.718+00:00#19 Stress & Infertility<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So my question is, do any of these infertility rituals actually work?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Religious or spiritual rituals, <strong>often aimed at banishing an evil presence which is preventing conception from happening, </strong>are a very common approach to solving infertility in many non-Western cultures.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2012/02/18-she-put-spell-on-me.html">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2012/02/18-she-put-spell-on-me.html</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is such a different approach to our lab-based scientific approach with blood tests, microscopes, hormone treatments, test-tubes, IVF, implantations and so on. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because these rituals are at the opposite end of the spectrum, it’s easy to dismiss them as a whole load of mumbo jumbo that wouldn’t make any difference.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before I go any further I should point out that infertility is a tricky business, and Western treatments certainly have a way to go. Assuming the battery of tests can identify a problem, the various treatments quite often have less than a 50% success rate.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: currentColor; margin: auto auto auto 5.4pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="height: 274.65pt; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border: 1pt solid windowtext; height: 274.65pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt; width: 13cm;" valign="top" width="614"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">WHERE DOES THE PROBLEM LIE?</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 8pt 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Contrary to popular belief, infertility is found roughly equally among men and women;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 8pt 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1505; tab-stops: 276.1pt 360.85pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Male Factor <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>32.5%<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100623T1053; tab-stops: 311.4pt 313.55pt;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Problems with sperm production is the reason in about 75% of cases, other reasons include male tubal blockages and ‘sperm allergies’ where the immune system reacts to the sperm.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 8pt 0cm 10pt; tab-stops: 276.1pt 354.6pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Female Factor<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>32.5%<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504; tab-stops: 276.1pt;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Female tubal blockages are responsible for about 50% of these cases, ovulation <br />
problems account for about 25%, and other reasons include endometriosis and<br />
egg quality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504; tab-stops: 276.1pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Multiple Male and Female Factors<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>10.8%<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504; tab-stops: 276.1pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Unexplained Infertility<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>24.2%<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504; tab-stops: 276.1pt;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Doctors are unable to find a cause, even after a full series of tests and assessments.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504; tab-stops: 276.1pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-prop-change: Gavin 20100615T1504;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><em>Sexually transmitted diseases and other infections affect these percentages in different populations. For example across central Africa it is estimated that 20-30% of couples are infertile due to untreated infections, in particular gonorrhoea and chlamydia.</em></span></div></td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I started thinking about the ritual treatments in many of these non-Western cultures and wondering if there is a possibility that some of them do actually ‘work’ by giving the infertile person reassurance – or reduce their stress. My thinking was that lower stress levels could lead to a more regular menstrual cycle, or less stress hormones could make conditions more conducive to conception.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After all, there are plenty of stories about people who had been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for years, and finally something happened that made them relax and stop trying (e.g. an adoption finally arranged) and they get pregnant the next month. Coincidence or reduction in stress levels?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have done some research now into stress and infertility and found out the following;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>1. Researchers believe that psychological factors – while important – are secondary to biological ones.</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suppose this basically mean that if there is a deal-breaking biological cause such as early menopause, or zero sperm count, then no amount of stress reduction could override certain physical problems.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>2. In answer to the chicken and egg question (which came first the stress or the infertility?) i</strong><strong>n Western culture stress is thought be caused by infertility, not the other way around. However, people who are stressed may behave in ways that harm their fertility, such as smoking, drinking, eating an unbalanced diet and often having a low libido.</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In non-Western culture there is no doubt that infertility causes massive amounts of stress too – the ramifications of not having children are probably more far-reaching in many of these cultures. My question about this point is whether stressed people in non-Western cultures would behave in similar ways that would harm their fertility – smoking, drinking and food issues may not be a way of alleviating stress in their culture.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>3. Various studies have been done to try to work out whether treating stress can improve pregnancy rates, such as support groups, cognitive behaviour therapy and relaxation training, however the results are inconclusive. Out of nine recent studies, four showed a positive effect on the number of pregnancies, and five showed no effect.</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although this is not conclusive, it does show that in some cases treating stress can have an effect - 4 out of 9 studies is better than none. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This makes me think that it is possible that the rituals with spirit mediums or traditional healers do help in some cases – the reassurance a woman gets from feeling that an evil curse has been lifted from her may be just what she needed.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For women in our culture, possibly the stress of trying not to be stressed about not getting pregnant just makes things worse? Rather like cancer patients who can be made to feel guilty if they don't have a Positive Mental Attitude all the time, being "not stressed" could be another thing for fertility patients to worry about.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you have any experience of the relationship between relieving stress and becoming pregnant I would be very interested to hear from you.</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <strong>* * * </strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> If you would like to read more, take a look at;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">HFEA (Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority) data, 2006</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Health Psychology</strong> </em>(Vol. 19, No. 6, 568-575)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Social Science and Medicine</strong></em> (Vol. 57, No. 12, 2,325-2,341)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-51700866297854537892012-02-09T20:41:00.002+00:002012-03-07T11:55:17.546+00:00#18 She put a spell on me<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Spells and sorcery are common explanations for infertility in some African cultures. Women unable to have children are often accused of being witches themselves.</em></span></strong></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today, I am staying on the witchcraft theme – shame it’s not Hallowe’en. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last post I shared a 2009 Gallop poll which shows the amazingly high number of people who believe in witchcraft in various African countries. Of the 18,000 people polled in 18 countries, on average 55% said they believed in witchcraft.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given the high prevalence of these beliefs, I guess it’s not surprising that witchcraft comes to mind for women who are having difficulty getting pregnant. Maybe it’s only one step further from us saying we feel so unlucky, or even ‘cursed’ in the same situation.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Nearly always, the spells and curses stopping a woman from getting pregnant are believed to be cast (or paid for if a 'professional' witch is used) by jealous women</strong>; jealous wives, jealous mothers, jealous lovers. It’s interesting how the finger of suspicion is so often pointed at another woman - it doesn't quite live up to the ideal of a supportive sisterhood.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I find it amazing that these beliefs about witchcraft and infertility are often held by educated, urban and wealthy people. For example, a recent piece of research (done in 2002) in Cape Town, South Africa with 150 infertile women, found that nearly half of the black women in the study considered evil spirits or witchcraft to be a possible cause of childlessness, and 24% of them had consulted a traditional or spiritual healer for help.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B_EQbFC54wE/TzPP2BY4wHI/AAAAAAAAANc/Z8KjhlfoTuE/s1600/South+African+traditional+healer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B_EQbFC54wE/TzPP2BY4wHI/AAAAAAAAANc/Z8KjhlfoTuE/s400/South+African+traditional+healer.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">South African traditional healer</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Women from a small ethnic group called the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Aowin</span></strong>, straddling Ghana and the Ivory Coast, West Africa, are enthusiastic users of spirit mediums in their quest for children. (This area of Africa is high up there in the witchcraft beliefs according to the Gallop poll, with 95% believers in Ivory Coast, and 77% believers in Ghana).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-chryiKXzOQQ/TzQrp0bPOFI/AAAAAAAAAN0/K-cQ1ccB-bY/s1600/Ghana+Traditional+healer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-chryiKXzOQQ/TzQrp0bPOFI/AAAAAAAAAN0/K-cQ1ccB-bY/s320/Ghana+Traditional+healer.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Hand-painted sign advertising a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">traditional healer in Ghana</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Children are incredibly important to Aowins. People who are unable to have children are ostracised, and infertile women may even be suspected of being witches themselves. <strong>To give a picture of just how badly they are treated, at the funeral of anyone who has not had children, their corpse is abused and the mourners instruct the spirit of the dead person never to return again.</strong> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In one small Aowin town in Ghana there was enough demand to keep 13 mediums in business (double the number of family doctors found in a town of the equivalent size in the UK). The spirit mediums’ approach to infertility is to find out what the woman has done to make the gods or ancestors angry. A researcher working among the Aowin interviewed 25 infertile women who had visited a spirit medium and recorded their diagnoses <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(some were given multiple diagnoses)</span>; <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul><li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>9 were told they wouldn’t conceive until they had reconciled their personal relationships with neighbours or husband</strong></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>7 were told they had offended the gods by not observing ritual practices</strong></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>5 were told they were guilty of causing tension within their family group</strong></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>4 were told that witches had caused their infertility, and </strong></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>1</strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong> was given the unfortunate news that she was herself a witch.</strong> <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The spirit mediums treatments included personal purification rituals and encouraging the woman to reconcile her social relations.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In neighbouring Nigeria among an ethic group called the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Yoruba</span></strong> they believe in the powers of a diviner, called a Babalawo, who can put juju spells on a woman that prevent her conceiving. He prepares special charms over a padlock, pendant or feather, or for the most powerful juju he uses a soaked menstrual pad from the targeted woman. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">A woman may call on the Babalawo’s services to prevent her co-wife from having more children than her, or anyone jealous of another woman’s fortune may try to cause her unhappiness in this way. </span></strong>If a woman thinks she is infertile she also goes to the Babalawo to find out why, and he consults the oracle using cowry shells or kola nuts. If he hears that witches or other Babalawo have put a curse on her, then in return for a substantial fee and all the props needed <strong>(kola nuts, gin, a cockerel, and a goat...)</strong> he can use all his power to lift the spell. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just like the Aowin, infertile Yoruban women may be accused of being witches themselves. In a survey of 236 infertile Yoruba women in Ile-Ife in Nigeria, 92 had been divorced because of their infertility (primary and secondary), and in 36 cases this was because they were accused by their husband of being a witch. <strong>This research was done during THIS CENTURY!</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In all three cultures mentioned in this post (South Africa, Aowin and Yoruba) the researchers found that women often consulted their spiritual healer as well as consulting a more conventional doctor, if they could afford to do both. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It gets me wondering, is a belief in witchcraft that different to the conventional religions? And is this behaviour so very different from a woman in our culture praying, as well as going to the doctor to treat her infertility problems?<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>* * *</strong> </span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you would like to read more, take a look at;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ed. MacCormack, Carol P (1982) <strong><em>Ethnography of Fertility and Birth</em></strong> Academic Press : New York</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SJ Dyer et al (2002) <strong><em>Infertility in South Africa: women’s reproductive health knowledge and treatment-seeking behaviour for involuntary childlessness</em></strong> Human Reproduction Vol 17 No. 6 1657-1662 </span><a href="http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/6/1657.full.pdf+html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/6/1657.full.pdf+html</span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Winny Koster-Oyekan (1999) <strong><em>Infertility among Yoruba Women: Perception on causes, treatments and consequences</em></strong> Journal of Reproductive Health 3 [1]:13-26<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Orji, E. O., Kuti, O. and Fasubaa, O. B. (2002). <strong><em>Impact of infertility on marital life in Nigeria </em></strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">International Journal of Gynecology and Obtetrics, 79, 61-62.</span> </span></span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-83152446562564142422012-01-25T14:39:00.003+00:002012-09-11T22:03:21.356+01:00#17 Witch babies<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>The Bariba culture believes that witch babies can be detected by certain signs at birth. This has a huge impact on the mother’s experience of childbirth</em></span></strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Bariba are one of the non-Western cultures I mentioned where the cultural ideal is for women to give birth alone; post #16 <a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/16-freebirthing-dude.html">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/16-freebirthing-dude.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Bariba number about half a million straddling the borders of Benin, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, and are nominally Muslim. However, like many cultures they have not abandoned their traditional ‘pagan’ religion, and daily life is influenced by both religions.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>Their traditional religion gives the Bariba a strong belief in witches and sorcery (this is the part of the world where voodoo originated).</strong></span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first time I read this I couldn’t believe that the descriptions were current, that people living there today actually believe in witches. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think my surprise comes from that fact that in British culture witches are mythical figures from the ‘olden days’, and are now just a source of annual amusement at Hallowe’en. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, as I’ve read more about cultures across Africa it is clear that many actually do believe in witches. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just look at this Gallup poll done in 2010 in 18 Sub-Saharan African countries (face-to-face interviews with 18,000 adults);</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o0OVAhujRIs/TyAOP2RZprI/AAAAAAAAANM/Sfrf1e6U7y8/s1600/gallup.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o0OVAhujRIs/TyAOP2RZprI/AAAAAAAAANM/Sfrf1e6U7y8/s1600/gallup.gif" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes these beliefs are innocent enough, but you don’t have to dig deep to find sinister reports of witch hunts, of children’s body parts being used for rituals, or of children suspected of being witches going through terrifying exorcism rituals.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During my research into pregnancy and childbirth around the world I've found that witchcraft is a common theme. For example many cultures across the continents believe that infertility is witchcraft, and/or have long lists of precautions that pregnant women must take to avoid witches casting spells on their unborn babies.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Protecting a newborn baby from covetous witches is also a concern. For example the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Fulani in West Africa roll their newborn baby in dung to make it so unattractive that no witch would want to come near it</span></strong>. The flip-side of this Fulani belief is that anyone coming to visit must be careful not to admire the newborn or they will be suspected of being a witch themselves and wanting to get their hands on the baby. Visitors will commonly be heard saying ‘Have you ever seen such an ugly baby?’ As the researcher says;<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: justify;"><em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>“Parents would be upset and even scared at a remark we would call complementary, for they would assume the person intended to harm the child. Children are so highly valued, as we have already seen, that when a child dies people’s first interpretation often is that someone or something wanted it badly enough to ‘take’ it."</strong></span></em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div></blockquote><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think these beliefs in witches relate to the frequency of death during pregnancy, childbirth and in newborns in these cultures. In the absence of any alternative, witches wanting to take newborn babies is a way of explaining why these tragedies happen.</span></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">* * *</span></div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--LHkFhlhOU4/TyAQWsYay1I/AAAAAAAAANU/YVTO_yN2xT8/s1600/Bariba+women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--LHkFhlhOU4/TyAQWsYay1I/AAAAAAAAANU/YVTO_yN2xT8/s320/Bariba+women.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Bariba women dressed up for a festival</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So back Bariba childbirth. How does their belief in witch babies affect a woman’s experience?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On top of the usual apprehensions about pain and uncertainty at childbirth, <strong><span style="font-size: large;">every Bariba woman approaches childbirth knowing that she might give birth to a witch baby.</span></strong> I would imagine this must have a huge psychological effect on expectant mothers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The signs that she has given birth to a witch baby are (figures in brackets show how common these events are in UK obstetrics); <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a breech birth (3-4%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">if the baby slides onto it’s stomach when its born – for delivery the mother kneels sitting on her heels, and the baby is not ‘caught’, rather it is allowed to slide along the floor<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(10%) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a baby born with teeth (0.3%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a baby born with extreme birth defects (1%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a baby born at 8 months (5%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">when the mother herself dies in childbirth it is believed that she was delivering a witchbaby which caused her death.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Traditionally if any of these things happened then it was confirmed by the household head (suspected babies had to</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> spend a night in a spooky room and if they slept peacefully rather than being scared the elders believed their suspicions were confirmed), and the witch baby would be killed by a ritual specialist or given away to a neighbouring tribes as a slaves. Nowadays witch babies may be ‘neutralised’ ceremonially – although a residual suspicion about them remains and these children will be treated differently and stigmatised for life.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is where the cultural ideal of birthing alone comes to be a factor, <span style="font-size: large;"><strong> if the woman has given birth alone then only she knows the circumstances of her child’s birth.</strong></span> Her options are either to tell everyone what has happened and face the consequences, or cover it up and have a child in the family who she believes could cause terrible damage.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bariba women interviewed said they wouldn’t lie about the signs because they wouldn’t want to have want a witch living among them, but conceded that some women might do so depending on their circumstances, for example if the baby was her first son she might try to disguise the witch baby signs. When mothers were asked whether they would grieve for a witch baby given away or killed, they responded that a mother should not grieve because her husband and his family had been endangered by the threat of illness or death in the form of this witch baby. </span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This research was done in the 1990s and these beliefs among the Bariba are still strong, particularly in rural areas where 90% of women still believe in witch babies. During her research period, Sargeant heard of at least 5 witch babies being born although they were taken in by missionaries and were not harmed.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I find it impossible to put myself in the shoes of these women whose belief and fear of witch babies is so strong that it overrides their protective mothering instinct.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p>* * *</strong></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more yourself, take a look at;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Riesman, P (1992) <strong><em>First find your child a good mother : The construction of self in two African communities</em></strong> USA : Rutgers University Press </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/142640/witchcraft-believers-sub-saharan-africa-rate-lives-worse.aspx"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.gallup.com/poll/142640/witchcraft-believers-sub-saharan-africa-rate-lives-worse.aspx</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Margarita Artschwager Kay (1982) <strong><em>Anthropology of Human Birth</em></strong> F.A. Davis Company : USA </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sargent, CF (1988) <strong><em>Born to die: Witchcraft and infanticide in Bariba culture</em></strong> International Journal of Cultural and Social anthropology 27(1):79-95<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-61991414976311417942012-01-18T14:26:00.003+00:002012-01-25T14:47:10.480+00:00#16 Freebirthing, Dude!<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em>It may sound like an high adrenaline sport, but freebirthing is actually a movement started in the USA encouraging women to give birth alone.<o:p></o:p></em></span></strong></span></span></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q9hP7g7kmo4/TxbVlSs9S6I/AAAAAAAAANE/fImlPcnPnqw/s1600/Surfer+dude+hand+gestures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q9hP7g7kmo4/TxbVlSs9S6I/AAAAAAAAANE/fImlPcnPnqw/s200/Surfer+dude+hand+gestures.jpg" width="168" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was doing some reading about giving birth alone in non-western cultures <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and came across quite a few websites about freebirthing, (also sometimes called Unassisted Birth or even a Do-It-Yourself birth) about women in the west who give birth alone.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had never heard of freebirthing before. These women decide to give birth at home, specifically choosing not to have any medical staff present, and often choose not even to have their husband or partner present. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> joke about it being like high adrenaline sport, but actually it turns out some women do equate it to an adrenaline rush – the ‘thrill of the catch’ as they grab their own baby on it’s way out. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To get a feeling for how common it is, (given that the advocates refer to it as a ‘movement’)the most up-to-date statistic I could find was that in 2004 in the USA 7,000 of the 4.1million babies born were ‘freebirthed’ – just a drop in the ocean.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite the small numbers involved, it seems to be one of those topics that generates an out of proportion amount of reaction and comment. There are heated debates between the advocates who say that freebirthing is safe and childbirth is not a disease that requires medical assistance, and the critics who say that it is dangerous and that medical support during childbirth is the factor that most influences the outcome.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_O6yY5Fua8U/TxbPlTlsIsI/AAAAAAAAAM8/E-k_QxfLHLc/s1600/Freebirthing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_O6yY5Fua8U/TxbPlTlsIsI/AAAAAAAAAM8/E-k_QxfLHLc/s320/Freebirthing.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">You will see lots of photos like this if you search on Google for Freebirthing</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems kind of illogical that here are women going through childbirth with arguably some of the best healthcare in the world at their fingertips but choose not to use it, yet in the non-western world many women have no access to any healthcare at all and often suffer enormously as a result.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In different cultures around the world the most common birthing scenario is the labouring mother being supported by other women, often older relatives who have been through birth themselves, and sometimes by a birthing specialist. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some experts guess that women helping one another during childbirth was an important part of our evolution. As discussed in a previous post, childbirth is a challenge for us homo sapiens. Because of the large head/small hole situation, the baby twists as it comes out so it is normally born facing away from the mother, making it difficult for her to reach down and clear the it’s passage way or remove the cord from around it’s neck if needed. Nearly all cultures improve the chances of a safe delivery by having other people there to help. It could be argued that birthing alone ignores the advantages of being human and being able to help one another. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, in a very few non-western cultures ‘unaccompanied birth’ is the cultural ideal. As a complete guess I would say that among the vast number of non-western cultures around the world, in less than 5% women are expected to give birth alone, often an ‘opportunity’ for the woman to demonstrate her strength and courage (not because they choose to).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some examples of these cultures would be;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Bariba</span></strong> – one of the 42 ethnic groups living in the hot, humid Africa country of Benin, numbering half a million. Although nominally Muslim, the Bariba are in touch with their animistic beliefs (Benin is where voodoo religion comes from). Women are expected to give birth alone, and the extra element here is their belief in witch babies, which traditionally were killed at birth or given away as slaves (nowadays ‘neutralised’ ceremonially).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Witch babies can be detected at the moment of birth by the following signs; a breech birth, if the baby slides onto it’s stomach not it’s back at birth, and a baby born with teeth. Giving birth alone may allow the mother to ignore these signs if she chooses. However it is not achieved by all - in a survey 14% of 120 first time mothers delivered alone, and 43% of 96 experienced mothers delivered alone.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Angagen</span></strong> – a very small group of just 1,000 living in isolated villages in the jungly, tropical and mountainous highlands of Papua New Guinea where they farm small plots of sweet potato, bananas, sugar cane and raise a few pigs. Outside of each village is an engi or ‘mother house’ which the women built themselves and use for rituals, menstruating and birthing. Traditionally a woman gave birth in the mother house having left some water (to clean herself and the baby) and a bamboo knife (to cut the cord) there in advance, and when the time came, she went to the hut and managed the birth on her own.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">!Kung</span></strong> – These are hunter-gatherers living in the southern African savannah, and yes, these are the women who go into the bush alone to labour, normally in a squatting position. The ideal is that after birthing on her own, the mother cuts the cord and buries the placenta herself, before returning to the village with her newborn. These women have the added danger of hyenas and lions lurking, attracted by the bloody smells. An unspoken rationale for birthing alone is that it allows women in extreme circumstances to practice infanticide if the baby is deformed or if the age gap is so close to her existing child that she would be unable to support both. Again, not all women achieve this ideal, in one research study of 54 births, 57% were delivered alone.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are of course more examples, but I’ll save those for another day. Many of the freebirthing websites refer to unassisted birth happening in other cultures, however, these few examples show that although unassisted birth might be the ideal, the reality is often different.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>* * *</strong></div><br />
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If you would like to read more, have a look at;<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sargent, CF<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>(1988) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Born to die: Witchcraft and infanticide in Bariba culture</i></b>International Journal of Cultural and Social anthropology 27(1):79-95<o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eds Davis-Floyd, Robbie E. And Sargent, Carolyn F. (1997) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge; Cross-cultural perspectives </i></b>University of California Press : USA</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">Shostack, M <span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(1983) <em><strong>Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman</strong></em> Random House</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><h1><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just add water; remaking women through childbirth, Anganen, Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- Leanne Merrett-Balkos in </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ed Kalpana Ram and Margaret Jolly (1998) <i>Maternities and Modernities; Colonial and postcolonial experiences in Asia and the Pacific</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambridge University Press</span></span></h1></span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;"><a href="http://freebirthing.org/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://freebirthing.org/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a href="http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/uc/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/uc/</span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unassisted_childbirth"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unassisted_childbirth</span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://www.nmc-uk.org/Nurses-and-midwives/Advice-by-topic/A/Advice/Free-birthing/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.nmc-uk.org/Nurses-and-midwives/Advice-by-topic/A/Advice/Free-birthing/</span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-40168036307927208972012-01-10T11:40:00.002+00:002012-01-18T14:59:25.710+00:00#15 Pity the hyena mother<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u></strong>:<strong> <em>It turns out that our bodies are not the only ones that are badly designed for childbirth. Hyenas give birth through their CLITORIS!</em></strong></span> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a previous post I wrote about us humans being relatively badly designed for childbirth compared to the other great apes. (Post #3 <a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/childbirth-are-our-bodies-designed-for.html">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/childbirth-are-our-bodies-designed-for.html</a>). Because of our large brain size our babies have big heads, and because we walk upright our pelvis has a small hole – the combination of these two factors can be lethal for mother and baby. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When you think about it, this is a pretty major design fault. No doubt some population geneticist could explain the costs and benefits to me, but from a species point of view (never mind the individual woman’s point of view) it seems odd to kill off one generation in producing the next.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, at that point I kind of thought that humans were unique in risking death and injury each time they gave birth. Clearly the other great apes did not suffer from this, and I had never really heard of other female species dying giving birth to their young. Based on absolutely no knowledge I had a vague feeling that because most other mammals give birth to such tiny babies relative to their body size, the babies just sort of slip out. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, there is at least one mammal that breaks the rule. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Take for example the hyena.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SoVbrbUkDn8/Twwg9TeliuI/AAAAAAAAAM0/ZAiPAVFNPBU/s1600/Hyena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SoVbrbUkDn8/Twwg9TeliuI/AAAAAAAAAM0/ZAiPAVFNPBU/s320/Hyena.jpg" width="304" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Firstly, the female hyena’s birth canal is V-shaped AND twice the usual length for a mammal her size, so that the baby has to travel quite a distance and make a 180 degree turn on its journey into the outside world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Secondly, she has no vagina and the birth canal leads into the clitoris, which sticks out 7 inches, rather like a penis. As the baby is squeezed out through this long clitoris tube, the clitoris itself is stretched and often tears.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Amazingly this one exit hole through her penis-like-clitoris is also where the hyena mother wees out of, and how she has sex. I can’t quite imagine how that would work. One theory is that as this makes sex so difficult without the full cooperation of the female, it effectively means that forced sex is not an option in this female dominated society). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many first time hyena mothers die giving birth, and 60% of infants being born to first time mothers suffocate and die passing through ‘the eye of this needle’.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suddenly our experience of childbirth doesn’t seem so bad...</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>* * *</strong> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you would like to read more yourself, take a look at;</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blaffer Hrdy, S (1999) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Mother Nature; A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection</i></b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>United States of America : Pantheon Books</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">S. M. Dloniak, J. A. French and K. E. Holekamp (2006) <strong>Rank-related maternal effects of androgens on behaviour in wild spotted hyaenas <o:p></o:p></strong></span><a href="http://muton.blogspot.com/2006/05/Nature%20440,%201190-1193%20%2827%20April%202006%29%20doi:10.1038/nature04540"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nature 440, 1190-1193 (</span></a><a href="http://muton.blogspot.com/2006/05/Nature%20440,%201190-1193%20%2827%20April%202006%29%20doi:10.1038/nature04540"><st1:date day="27" month="4" year="2006"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">27 April 2006</span></st1:date></a><a href="http://muton.blogspot.com/2006/05/Nature%20440,%201190-1193%20%2827%20April%202006%29%20doi:10.1038/nature04540"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">) doi:10.1038/nature04540</span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-51817777165426568612012-01-05T22:46:00.001+00:002012-01-05T22:47:28.481+00:00#14 Giving birth in front of Grandpa<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>In cultures that believe in reincarnation, many family members may gather to witness the rebirth of their ancestor – including Grandpa</em></span></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I gave birth to all three of my babies in hospital, and at the moment of delivery there were three people with me; my husband, a midwife and a doctor (in fact a rather dishy male doctor at my second delivery which was either a welcome surprise or rather off-putting, I couldn’t work out which).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">In terms of family, this is definitely what I wanted. I positively wanted my husband there, and I positively didn’t want anyone else there to see my emotional meltdowns and private parts. </span></span></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"></span></div><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In terms of medical staff, I valued their input and wanted them there to make sure things were going ok, and I suppose as they were strangers who I would most likely never see again (such is the NHS system in our area) I didn’t really mind them seeing me in full uninhibited childbirth mode.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The scenario I describe above is pretty much the norm in our culture. Maybe that was what I wanted because that is what I had been lead to expect from books, TV programmes and other cultural influences. Not so many generations ago women in our culture would have been horrified at the thought of having their husbands present, think of the husbands pacing about outside a closed door (well, that’s how it was shown in films!). </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While this is what we might find most comfortable, many non-Western women would be extremely uncomfortable with the idea of their husband, and a doctor – a stranger and often a man – being present. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Around the world it seems that every variation can be found, from birthing completely alone, to birthing in front of the whole village, although the most common birthing scenario in the non-Western world seems to be having the support of a few older women who are usually related to the labouring woman, while all men, children, and women who have not yet given birth themselves are excluded. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One extreme example of a birthing scenario that is extremely different to our own is found in <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Bali</span></strong>. Although this is increasingly uncommon these days, in the past, mothers from Bali gave birth at their household compound, surrounded by their husband, any older children and other family members - including possibly her mother, aunts and even her father, uncles and grandparents - who were there to witness this joyous occasion. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Their Hindu belief in reincarnation means that the birth of a child is the equivalent to watching someone descending from heaven. <strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Birth can almost be thought of as the reincarnated soul exiting from the uterus rather than a new child being born</em></span></strong>, which is why so many relatives wanted to be present.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">The mother gave birth squatting on a mat on the floor, assisted by the local “balian”, a type of spiritual midwife (or maybe midperson would be a better word as half of them were men), who</span> </span>could apparently use spiritual powers to change the position of the infant to ensure relatively painless delivery. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It sounds quite strange for the mother, who seems to be treated more like a receptacle who receives an ancestor, rather than a mother of her own new baby, her own flesh and blood. Even after birth the baby is treated as if it is divine, as the observer says;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><em><strong>"Having just arrived from heaven your infant should be treated as a celestial being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Provide the attention that a God deserves, address the child with the high language suitable for a person of higher rank. Hold your newborn’s head high, and for the first 210 days never put your baby down on the ground or floor, too profane for a god – until then your baby should be carried at all times. If you don’t treat your infant with respect, he may decide to leave the human world and return to the world of the gods."</strong></em></blockquote></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The placenta is thought of as the baby’s sibling, and must be treated respectfully so it is washing in flower scented water and then buried ceremonially in a coconut shell covered in money and flowers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wHuzaCkBvac/TwYll3Aze6I/AAAAAAAAAMs/IO4_hlCPBxk/s1600/traditions-bali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wHuzaCkBvac/TwYll3Aze6I/AAAAAAAAAMs/IO4_hlCPBxk/s1600/traditions-bali.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">As any traveller will know, daily life in Bali is full of traditions</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From what I have read it seems that this does still happen in parts of Bali, and although many mothers now give birth in a clinic, the Hindu belief in reincarnation and the accompanying rituals are widespread.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Frustratingly, there are no comments on how the mothers find this experience; firstly of giving birth in front of the extended family, and secondly of giving birth to an ancestor. It’s so far removed from my experiences that its almost beyond my imaginings. Maybe the most likely sentiment is that this scenario is what they feel most comfortable with as it’s what they have been lead to expect – its the Balinese cultural norm....</span></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>* * *</strong> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you would like to read more yourself, take a look at;</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";">DeLoache, J. & Gottlieb, A (2000) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>A world of babies; Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies</i></b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>New York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambridge University Press</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hobart, A Ramseyer, U and Leemann, A (2001) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>The Peoples of Bali</i></b> Blackwell Publishers Ltd : Oxford<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-6194911545377804362011-12-06T20:46:00.004+00:002011-12-06T21:13:57.992+00:00#13 How much sex is enough?<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Having sex just once cannot make a baby according to some cultures - they believe that a couple needs to have sex repeatedly over a number of days or even weeks to create a foetus</em></strong></span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ok so before you get too excited, you may have gathered that we're talking conception here, rather than satisfaction...</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here I will be describing the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">“keep having sex every day until you’re sure you’re pregnant” approach</span></strong>, as followed by quite a number of cultures around the world.</span></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is in contrast to the rather less exciting general advice given in the West <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">to have sex during the 3-5 days around ovulation each month - on average most couples following this advice will get pregnant after 6 months. </span></span></span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a previous post #11 we found that the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Inuit</span></strong> believed that a couple needed to have sex many times to achieve a pregnancy. This was why they didn’t think that a one night stand with the Shaman could be the reason the wife got pregnant. For actual conception, <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">the father was believed to create the foetus with numerous deposits of semen over several weeks. (<a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/11-would-you-have-affair-to-get.html">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/11-would-you-have-affair-to-get.html</a>)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have found a few variations on this belief around the world, where conception is only believed to occur after having sex lots of times.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Seri</b> </span>live on the dry hot western Coast of the Gulf of California in Mexico. Like other North American Indians they used to live as nomadic hunter-gatherers and fishermen and numbered many thousand. The remaining 500 or so are fairly Westernised, but have kept many traditional beliefs in the supernatural, with a shaman who mediates between the spirits and the people. <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Traditionally the Seri believed there was a little pouch inside the womb which had to be filled up with semen before conception could occur</b>.</span> The couple had sex a number of times and the semen collected in this little pouch over the days or weeks. Once the pouch was full, it was believed that the baby’s spirit, a ‘little winged thing’ which only the shaman could see, flew down and entered the woman’s body creating a new life. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W4w6uYA9a8k/Tt57klSZXHI/AAAAAAAAALc/lmMkP-hbnNs/s1600/pouch+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W4w6uYA9a8k/Tt57klSZXHI/AAAAAAAAALc/lmMkP-hbnNs/s320/pouch+2.jpg" width="216" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Do you think this is the sort of pouch the Seri imagined?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once they start trying for a baby, the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Kiliai</span></strong> believe a couple should keep having sex every day until the mother feels the baby kicking (<em>note that kicking is not normally felt until 16-20 weeks into pregnancy, so that’s quite a lot of daily sex!</em>). This isolated and small group from Papua New Guinea numbering less than a 1,000 are known for the large men’s house in each village where all the unmarried men live. <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They believe that a baby is made entirely from its father’s semen - which is possibly why so much of it is required</b> -</span> whereas its mother’s contribution only begins after birth through the act of breastfeeding. </span></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9p5ZI6h1hkA/Tt6FF28TULI/AAAAAAAAALs/mJS-Y39iMb0/s1600/kicking+baby.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9p5ZI6h1hkA/Tt6FF28TULI/AAAAAAAAALs/mJS-Y39iMb0/s1600/kicking+baby.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A Kiliai woman would have to wait for this feeling<br />
before she could stop having daily sex</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will include one final example which was observed and written by Margaret Mead in 1935 (one of the first female anthropologists). She did loads of research in Papua New Guinea among numerous different tribes, and was particularly interested in their attitudes to sex. These are her words:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>“The procreative task of an Arapesh father is not finished with impregnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><strong>The Arapesh have no idea that after the initial act which establishes physiological paternity, the father can go away and return 9 months later to find his wife safely delivered of a child.</strong> Such a form of parenthood they would consider impossible, and furthermore repellent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the child is not the product of a moment’s passion, but is made by both father and mother, carefully, over a period of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Arapesh distinguish two kinds of sex-activity, play, which is all sex-activity that is not known to have induced the growth of a child, and work, purposive sex-activity directed towards making a particular child, towards feeding it and shaping it during the first weeks in the mother’s womb......<strong>When the mother’s breasts show the characteristic swelling and discoloration of pregnancy, then the child is said to be finished – a perfect egg, it will now rest in the mother’s womb.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From this time on, all intercourse is forbidden, for the child must sleep undisturbed, placidly absorbing food that is food for it.”</em></div></blockquote></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, what do we make of this sexual, or should be call it reproductive, behaviour?</span><br />
<br />
<ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems likely that it will improve the chances of success – if you have sex every day then at least some of it will take place during ovulation – although sadly no data is available. Although this is not the standard approahc here, c<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ouples having difficulty conceiving are recommended by some experts to have sex every other day throughout the month (especially if the woman has an irregular cycle) on the basis that the more sex a couple has, the more likely conception is to occur.</span></span></span></div></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><ul><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is a pretty logical approach. Let’s face it, conception is pretty mysterious; it takes place out of sight; it is completely unpredictable whether conception will result from any particular sexual encounter; and proof that it has actually happened is only seen or felt some weeks after the event. Without pregnancy tests, this seems a good way to guarantee the right result.</span></div></li>
</ul><ul></ul><ul><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><li><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It would give people different sexual freedom. One-night stands would not be risky from a pregnancy point of view, and from what I understand generally seem to be pretty acceptable in these societies. Of course once can be enough as some lucky (or unlucky) people find out, and what is not made clear in any of the accounts is what would happen if a woman did get pregnant from a one-night stand when she hadn’t been working on getting pregnant with her husband.</span></div></li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><ul><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><li><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T0s02gcSJxo/Tt5-M114SXI/AAAAAAAAALk/dwSbPYLSLT4/s1600/male+ego.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T0s02gcSJxo/Tt5-M114SXI/AAAAAAAAALk/dwSbPYLSLT4/s200/male+ego.jpg" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Would he like to think he created a baby</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">single-handedly?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lastly, it's <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">my cynical reaction is that this belief probably exists to boost the male ego. <strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">It substantially enhances a man’s role in creating the baby – his services are required more than once and each of his daily ‘contributions’ are often believed to form the foetus.</span></em></strong> It also may provide the more paranoid husband with reassurance that he is indeed the father of the baby.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ul><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, maybe <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">the “keep having sex every day until you’re sure you’re pregnant” approach</span> its worth a try if you’ve already tried the conventional advice.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Please let me know how it goes.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>* * *</strong></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more for yourself, take a look at;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Counts, D (1984) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infant care and feeding in Kaliai, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Ecology of Food and Nutrition Vol 15 p49-59</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Mary Beck Moser (1982)<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span><strong><em>Seri: From Conception Through Infancy</em> </strong>in</span><strong> </strong></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Margarita Artschwager Kay (1982) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><em>Anthropology of Human Birth</em> </b>F.A. Davis Company : USA<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mead, M (1935,48, 52) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies</i></b> Lund Humphries : London</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Duncan, P (1972) <strong><em>Nunaga: my land, my country</em></strong> USA : MG Hurtig Ltd</span><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-86884053781842995022011-11-30T12:58:00.002+00:002011-12-04T16:55:47.668+00:00#12 Breastfeeding on the job<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Us ‘modern day mothers’ are not the only ones having to juggle breastfeeding with going back to work</em></span></strong></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today I’m going to add to a previous post #8</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>about some superhuman Nepali women living in the foothills of the Himalayas who carry enormously heavy bundles of firewood during their pregnancies.(<a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/8-no-such-thing-as-maternity-leave-in.html">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/8-no-such-thing-as-maternity-leave-in.html</a>)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Equally impressive was the lengths the researcher (Catherine Panter-Brick) was prepared to go to, to see these women's breastfeeding habits were affected by their work and way of life. <span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">She spent a year in this village, keeping a <strong>minute by minute</strong> record of the activities of 58 village women, observing each of them for several days during 4 different seasons of the year. That’s dedication! (She is now Professor of Anthropology at Durham University, so I guess her dedication paid off).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had naively thought that the difficulties of combining work and motherhood were new issues for women in the past 50 years. I somehow assumed that pre Women’s Lib, mothers stayed at home and looked after the children, and I probably thought that it was the same around the world. <strong><span style="font-size: large;">I hadn’t even really thought about the fact that women in other cultures have been ‘going back to work’ after having their babies for centuries </span></strong>(a necessity if their family are to have enough food to eat). </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Next time you and your friends are discussing the difficulties of going back to work while breastfeeding, spare a thought for these Nepali women and feel reassured that your problem is as old as the hills.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, among these Nepali women, how does a mother’s work affect her breastfeeding patterns?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given that its pretty tricky to have a baby around in most Western workplaces, women in our culture who want to keep breastfeeding after they return to work have two main options. It either involves </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a whole lot of expressing and ferrying bottles of breastmilk to and from work in freezerbags, or </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">arranging for whoever is looking after the baby to bring it to them at regular intervals to be fed – workplaces in the UK are all meant to have a private breastfeeding area.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m sure some women manage, but you’d have to be pretty dedicated. Among my friends, I think everyone aimed to stop daytime breastfeeding by the time they returned to work.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Back in our Nepali village, formula or bottle feeding is not an option - the women simply have to keep breastfeeding their babies. When it comes to combining work with breastfeeding, the options depend on their way of life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are two distinct cultural groups in this village; </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Tamang</span></strong>, the majority of the villagers who farm crops and animals for a living (both the men and women). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Kami</span></strong>, a smaller group who are less egalitarian, the men are blacksmiths supplying farming tools to the Tamang, and the women mostly work inside or near the house.</span><br />
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5zRBY8FihMU/TtYS6zg-baI/AAAAAAAAAK8/5A5XeUTJVs8/s1600/nepali+woman+carrying+baby+and+firewood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5zRBY8FihMU/TtYS6zg-baI/AAAAAAAAAK8/5A5XeUTJVs8/s320/nepali+woman+carrying+baby+and+firewood.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A heavily burdened Nepali woman</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A <strong>Tamang</strong> woman returning to work usually a week or two after giving birth normally carries</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> the baby in a basket on her back with her to work (the fields are quite far outside the village, up some pretty precarious paths) and breastfeeds when she has a break. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Her only option for childcare is to l</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">eave the baby at home with an older sibling (any child over about 5 years is considered old enough for this – something else I was astounded by, especially looking at my own irresponsible 5 year old!). All able-bodied adults are out working during the day. <strong><span style="font-size: large;">You can imagine that when the mother is collecting firewood (the legendary 36kgs) then leaving the baby behind would be preferable. Although as is seen in this photo, some women combine the two.</span></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QKnDU8mfK8o/TtYTrsAOdEI/AAAAAAAAALE/hzuhPl45rfQ/s1600/Nepali+baby-in-basket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QKnDU8mfK8o/TtYTrsAOdEI/AAAAAAAAALE/hzuhPl45rfQ/s320/Nepali+baby-in-basket.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Just hanging about - a Nepalia baby in its basket</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <strong>Kami </strong>women seem to have easier choices when they resume their chores after birth as they are based in the village. The mother can can l</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ook after the baby in the house while doing household chores, of if she </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">need to be out of the house (in the kitchen garden or feeding the animals), shecan either leave the baby hanging in its basket with her husband who ‘works from home’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>doing his blacksmith stuff, or with other neighbours who are generally at home in the village.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ll save you from the detailed results (which really are quite detailed – e.g. Tamang women on average feeding for 8.1 minutes, at intervals of 87 minutes, feeding her baby 9 times for a total of 60 minutes, 2/3 of feeds were during farming activities etc.). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Broadly, her conclusions were;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>1. The type of work a mother does affects how she cares for her child; </strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>The Tamang mothers have to do this arduous farming work nearly every day of the year, and carry their babies around for years while breastfeeding them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They barely have time to wash and dress their babies, and young children left behind when parents are out working on the fields are pretty neglected, eating cold, sometimes contaminated leftovers, which makes them seriously ill.</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>2. The type of work affects the mother’s ability to breastfeed. </strong></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Women working the fields have longer intervals between breastfeeds than women who are looking after the animal herds (I guess it’s easier to breastfeed on the job while herding animals). </em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>3. The type of work done by the mother’s family or community makes a big difference to the availability of childcare for her baby.</strong> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><em>The Kami women have plentiful babysitters in the village, whereas the Tamang women either have to take their babies with them or leave the children at home in less than ideal circumstances.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So apart from the specifics such as animal herding and blacksmithing, don't these conclusions sound familiar? I could apply each of them pretty neatly to my own circumstances.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Do you have any stories or advice about combining breastfeeding with going back to work?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>* * *</strong> </span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you would like to read more for yourself, have a look at;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Government advice on breastfeeding when returning to work;</span><br />
<a href="http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_082505"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_082505</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">About Catherine Panter-Brick;</span><br />
<a href="http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/research/publications/?mode=staff&id=135"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/research/publications/?mode=staff&id=135</span></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">About her research; </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Panter-Brick, C <strong>Working Mothers in Rural Nepal</strong> in Editors Vanessa Maher (1992) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>The Anthropology of Breast-Feeding; Natural Law or Social Construct </strong></i>Worcester UK : Billing and Sons Ltd</span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Panter-Brick, C (1991) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>Lactation, birth spacing and maternal work-loads among two castes in rural Nepal</strong></i> Journal of Biosocial Science 23:137-54</span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-8704632332680849952011-11-23T09:46:00.004+00:002011-11-23T13:18:39.420+00:00#11 Would you have an affair to get pregnant?<span style="color: #0b5394;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Without infertility treatment, in some cultures sleeping with someone else may be the only way to get pregnant.</em></span></strong> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At first glance, sleeping with another man to get pregnant seems pretty extreme behaviour, doesn’t it? </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, imagine yourself in a scenario where the following is true;</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>1. Your marriage is an arranged marriage, rather than a love marriage</strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong> </strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>2. If you don’t get pregnant, it is very likely your husband will either divorce you or take a second wife</strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong> </strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>3. Having children and being a mother is <u>literally</u> the only acceptable way of life; not having children will mean you are a social outcast</strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong> </strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>4. Although women are generally blamed for infertility, you know your husband is the reason you aren't getting pregnant </strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong> </strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>5. There is no available infertility treatment for men</strong></em></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Under these circumstances what ‘resourceful’ woman wouldn’t consider the possibility of finding an alternative man to father her child!? </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I first came across this idea (see the last paragraph of Post #1 <a href="http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/pregnant-or-breastfeeding-for-30-years.html">http://pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/pregnant-or-breastfeeding-for-30-years.html</a>) among the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Gusii </span></strong>of Kenya, where large family sizes are so important that if the father becomes impotent or infertile after one or two children he will allow/arrange for his wife to sleep with one of his kinsmen in order to keep having more children.</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was quite surprised that the man would prefer to have an unfaithful wife than a small family, but I guess it all depends on your culture and what it prioritises. We place a high value on fidelity, whereas the Gusii place a higher value on family size.</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Without test-tubes and turkey basters, I suppose this sort of arrangement is a natural alternative to sperm donations. The only difference being that the insemination is not artificial for these women....</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span class="fieldlabel1"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course this strategy can backfire, as is nicely illustrated in this story about a Yoruba doctor (Nigeria) </span></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><strong>"A medical doctor reiterated the story of a man with two wives who had only daughters. He had his sperm tested because he wanted a son. His semen appeared to be infertile. The women both, but separately admitted to the doctor that they had their children from other men. The doctor therefore did not say anything to the husband about his infertility."</strong></blockquote></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wondered if this happens in any other cultures around the world. So far<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have managed to find four examples in very different cultures, each with their own twist.</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_Sy8-Eq6Dec/TswRkiT8xnI/AAAAAAAAAKc/CujnAMtR2oE/s1600/Bena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_Sy8-Eq6Dec/TswRkiT8xnI/AAAAAAAAAKc/CujnAMtR2oE/s320/Bena.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A Bena woman with traditional hairstyle</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Bena</span></strong> people who live in the high mountains of southern Tanzania, have a pretty practical solution to the whole situation If a newly married couple were having problems getting pregnant, the husband and wife both had sex outside of their marriage to see who was responsible for the problem (the Bena seem to be one of the few cultures that actually entertain the idea that men can also be infertile, rather than automatically blaming the woman). <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>It worked out as a sort of fertility test - the wife went back to her parents’ home and as the author put it “amuses herself with lovers” while her husband stays behind and does the same</strong></span>. If she got pregnant, then the marriage was annulled and she remarried her new lover. If her husband got another woman pregnant then he might remarry, and depending on their affection for each other, the first wife might return to work in the household and help bring up the children. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tg4vNdp9AZI/TswS2izY19I/AAAAAAAAAKk/3zXvJOlJXEo/s1600/mAKUA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Tg4vNdp9AZI/TswS2izY19I/AAAAAAAAAKk/3zXvJOlJXEo/s1600/mAKUA.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Macua women in tradition dress and white facepaint</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I found a slightly less open example among the <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Macua </span></strong>women from Mozambique (a large ethnic group with a population over a million), where most women experiencing problems getting pregnant will try having sex with different men, possibly at the same time as using medical and spiritual solutions (infertility is often believed to be caused by spirits). A researcher spent time in 1997 with 50 married women who were having problems conceiving. Some said that their healer advised them to have sex with other men, others sad they were checking to see if ‘the blood of another man was more compatible’. Their affairs were apparently secret from their husbands, but <strong><span style="font-size: large;">the women said they were not worried about their husbands finding out as their priority was to have a child, not to save their marriage</span></strong>. Unusually, in Macua society land and lineage is passed down the female line, not the male line. This also means that children stay with their mother after divorce (whereas in cultures of male descent the father usually takes the children) so the women have nothing to lose.</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As a Macua woman said;<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em></em></span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em><blockquote class="tr_bq">"A compound without children is considered a place without pleasure."</blockquote></em></span></strong></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QJRVqtzUJ4Y/TswTms_VRaI/AAAAAAAAAKs/yePN0WjXW2o/s1600/iGBO.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QJRVqtzUJ4Y/TswTms_VRaI/AAAAAAAAAKs/yePN0WjXW2o/s1600/iGBO.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">An Ibgo woman and baby ready to go to a wedding</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Igbo</span></strong> women from Nigeria also had to make difficult personal decisions to achieve a much-desired pregnancy. In the past, if the wife didn’t conceive and she believed she was the problem, she could give her husband bridewealth money for him to buy/marry a second wife and then any children from that second marriage were raised by the barren first wife as her own – <strong><span style="font-size: large;">a sort of surrogacy arrangement</span></strong>. On the other hand, if the husband was impotent, and the discontented wife complained to his family, they might test her claim by sending a ‘widow’ to see him (by this I think they mean a prostitute of sorts). If the widow’s visit confirmed the wife’s claim, then the husband’s family took the wife to the village shrine to absolve her for the adultery she was about to commit, and a liaison with a man from outside the village was arranged without the husband’s knowledge. </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X82dBiwR73k/TswUOl8EccI/AAAAAAAAAK0/SvXy0jZlYC0/s1600/iNUIT+SHAMAN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X82dBiwR73k/TswUOl8EccI/AAAAAAAAAK0/SvXy0jZlYC0/s200/iNUIT+SHAMAN.jpg" width="126" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">An old photo of an Inuit Shaman</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Among the Alaskan <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Inuit </span></strong>(Eskimo) the affair was not so calcuated. A couple would consult their shaman if the wife didn’t conceive after a couple of years of marriage. During his consultation the shaman entered a trance, where he summoned up the spirits, who helped him take a “magical flight to the moon, where he picked up a child for the woman and hurries back with it”. In Inuit cosmology the Moon Man spirit is associated with fertility and continuity of human life. In return for his shamanistic services he asked for a night in the woman’s bed. <strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Inuit believe that conception only takes place if a couple have sex numerous times, and don’t believe that having sex just once can result in conception.</span></strong> Rather than linking any subsequent pregnancy to that one night spent with the shaman, they attributed it to his magical flight to the moon.</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So ladies, if you are one of the 24% of infertile couples whose infertility is unexplained (doctors can find nothing wrong with you or your husband) maybe this would be something to consider......</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div><div align="center" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span class="fieldlabel1"><o:p><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">* * *</span></strong></o:p></span></div><div align="left" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div align="left" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span class="fieldlabel1"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more yourself, take a look at;</span></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="author">Culwick, A. T. (1935)</span> <span class="hittitle"><strong><em>Ubena of the Rivers</em></strong> London ; Allen & Unwin Ltd</span></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trudie Gerrits (1997) <strong><em>Social and cultural aspects of infertility in Mozambique</em></strong> Patient Education and Counseling 31:39-48</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><em>Traditional Onitsha Ibo Maternity Beliefs and Practices</em></strong> Helen Henderson, Richard Henderson in Margarita Artschwager Kay (1982) <strong><em>Anthropology of Human Birth</em></strong> F.A. Davis Company : USA</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Duncan, P (1972) <strong><em>Nunaga: my land, my country</em></strong> USA : MG Hurtig Ltd</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Winny Koster-Oyekan (1999) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infertility among Yoruba Women: Perception on causes, treatments and consequences</i></b> Journal of Reproductive Health 3 [1]:13-26</span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-85105697969348399662011-11-16T13:07:00.000+00:002011-11-16T13:07:32.998+00:00#10 Birth in Bangladesh<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>Childbirth is thought to be so ‘polluting’ in rural Bangladesh that the ‘dai’ who helps with the birth only bothers to wash her hands after she has finished dealing with the newborn and birth fluids, not before.</em></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Right, today I am going to tackle one of the big ones – childbirth.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have been slightly putting this off as it certainly doesn’t make for light reading. I guess we got a hint at this from the terrible birthing statistics around the world in post #2.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But today, I am going to describe the childbirth experiences in rural Bangladesh.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you are hoping for descriptions of a lovely natural birth, with nurturing traditional birthing customs that ensure the safe delivery of the baby, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. If you are a fan of ‘natural birth’ you may find you’ve changed your mind after you’ve read this.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In fact, maybe this post should come with a health warning – not for the faint hearted, or anyone who is going to be giving birth soon.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">People in rural Bangladesh, be they Christian, Muslim or Hindu, think of childbirth as an extremely ‘polluting’ event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think we really have an equivalent to the idea of this sort of ‘pollution’. It has nothing to do with the physical mess created by labour (something that we could understand more easily) but describes the belief that women in childbirth and for some time afterwards are contaminated or impure. Any contact with the birthing mother, the bodily fluids of birth, or the newborn is thought to be polluting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because of this their childbirth practices are all about avoiding pollution, rather than delivering the baby safely. Family members want to minimise their contact with the birthing process, which means that the labouring woman is not really supported in any way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s such a terrible thought that because of these superstitious beliefs, women are not supported by anyone in their time of need. And it really is a time of need, there is no pain relief, and it’s very likely the birthing mother is petrified by what’s about to happen. But instead, the other women in their household watch from a distance, possibly giving her a bit of sanctified water to drink if the pain gets really bad.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Women give birth either in a hut specially built away from the main house, or in a partitioned off part of the kitchen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A birth assistant called a ‘dai’ is employed, not to provide support or expertise, but to deal with the pollution of the birth, leaving everyone else unpolluted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has no training and normally does as instructed by the other elderly women who are looking on. <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>The dai is usually a very low caste person who is "typically so poor that she is prepared to take on this most disgusting of tasks"</strong></span> which involves touching the woman’s genitals, cutting the cord, cleaning the baby, and tidying up the placenta and fluids of labour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But even the dai will not bother to wash her hands before assisting with a delivery, and will only do so afterwards, to try to wash away the pollution. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This obsession with ‘pollution’ contrasts with the total lack of concern or precautions to do with hygiene. The villagers blame evil spirits, rather than infection, for any death in childbirth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On reading about these poor women’s experiences, the bit that really touched me was that once the baby was delivered, the dai forced the labouring woman’s plait down her throat to make her wretch and expel the placenta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How awful.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uaZv5sBHVIQ/TsO0uomACFI/AAAAAAAAAKU/ZgDWa18sG8c/s1600/dai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uaZv5sBHVIQ/TsO0uomACFI/AAAAAAAAAKU/ZgDWa18sG8c/s1600/dai.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A Dai. Photo credit IRIN</span></td></tr>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is a quote from a researcher called Blanchet doing fieldwork in northern Bangladesh. She was present at the first labour of a seventeen year old girl in the family kitchen. A dai had been called but had not arrived.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>“As the delivery became imminent, it became evident that none of the other women present was prepared to tackle the birth. Instead they asked Blanchet herself to catch the baby. Blanchet asked for soap to wash her hands, but the women told her that it was before not after that she should use soap. The birth was without complication, but throughout the birthing process the other women refrained from coming in contact with the birth substances. For instance, when the baby was delivered by Blanchet, she was advised to place it on the cold earth of the floor, as none of the women was willing to hold it.”</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have read very similar accounts of childbirth in Uttar Pradesh, India so clearly these attitudes are found throughout that part of the world. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I think that’s enough for today....</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One consequence of these pollution beliefs that could be positive, is that women may be more willing to go to a health centre or hospital to give birth as it will keep the pollution out of the house. In many cultures women are very reluctant to go to hospitals and expose themselves to doctors, usually male doctors, as this is deeply shameful. Often hospitals are used as a very last resort for difficult deliveries, once it is too late. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you would like to read more yourself, have a look at:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rozario, S <strong>‘The Dai and the doctor: discourses on women’s reproductive health in rural Bangladesh’</strong> in Ed Kalpana Ram and Margaret Jolly (1998) <strong>Maternities and Modernities; Colonial and postcolonial experiences in Asia and the Pacific </strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambridge University Press</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blanchet, T (1984) <strong>Women, Pollution and Marginality: Meanings and Rituals of Birth in Rural Bangladesh</strong> Dhaka: University Press</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Interestingly, less damning accounts of the Bangladeshi Dais can be found. For example;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://southasia.oneworld.net/Article/more-resources-needed-to-reduce-maternal-mortality"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://southasia.oneworld.net/Article/more-resources-needed-to-reduce-maternal-mortality</span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.pwrdf.org/stories/all-stories/stories/?tx_ttnews%5Byear%5D=2006&tx_ttnews%5Bmonth%5D=11&tx_ttnews%5Bday%5D=10&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=280&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=50&cHash=553b0c108a"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.pwrdf.org/stories/all-stories/stories/?tx_ttnews%5Byear%5D=2006&tx_ttnews%5Bmonth%5D=11&tx_ttnews%5Bday%5D=10&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=280&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=50&cHash=553b0c108a</span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.womendeliver.org/updates/entry/corporate-buzz-a-thousand-tiny-knots-on-the-way-to-one-million-health-care-/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.womendeliver.org/updates/entry/corporate-buzz-a-thousand-tiny-knots-on-the-way-to-one-million-health-care-/</span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">About India:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Patricia Jeffery, Roger Jeffery, Andrew Lyon (1989) <strong>Labour pains and labour power</strong> Zed Books : New Jersey USA<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-71419004278924937072011-11-09T11:59:00.003+00:002012-09-26T21:00:39.329+01:00#9 Grass hut Caesareans<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>People in Uganda were performing successful Caesareans before they were done in Europe</em></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Seeing as Caesarean sections are in the news at the moment I thought I’d add a Caesarean story to my blog today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Caesarean or C-section, or just plain old section, I’m never quite sure what to call them (too many ‘a’s and ‘e’s for my spelling ability!).... The NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) is now recommending that women in England and Wales are given the right to choose a C-section on the NHS, whereas currently C-sections are only performed if there is a medical need, or if you are prepared to pay for them privately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This seems such a strange reversal of attitude, until now we couldn’t even have an epidural on demand with the NHS and they were encouraging us all to have intervention-free births, and now suddenly they are recommending C-sections on demand?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a scale of natural to unnatural, C-sections are obviously the least ‘natural’ way to give birth. They are the ultimate way to escape the risks of childbirth that nature throws at us (discussed in post #2). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So have any other cultures around the world also come up with the idea of a C-section?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The name Caesarean brings to mind the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. Whether or not Caesar was born in this way (historians seem to disagree), the Romans did perform C-Sections of a sort – cutting the baby out in an emergency, but not being able to save the mother. Similar operations are recorded in other ancient cultures, and among the Maori in New Zealand and some cultures in Papua New Guinea, but it was always fatal for the mother.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">According to Wikipedia, the first 'modern' C-section, with the aim of saving the mother and the baby, was performed by a German gynaecologist in 1881, although with high mortality rates initially.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">U</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">nbeknownst to them, far away in Central Africa, people were already performing successful C-sections, where both the mother and baby survived.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An explorer called Robert Felkin wrote a fantastic eye-witness account of such an operation which he saw performed in 1879. <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Amazing that we consider C-sections to be the height of modern sophistication, yet here were people in what was probably considered "deepest darkest Africa" competently performing these operations over 130 years ago.</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To be fair, we don’t know how often, how successful or how widespread the operations were.<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="color: white;">But the knowledgeable way the operation was performed and the successful outcome suggests it wasn’t the first time that the ‘surgeon’ had done this operation.</span></span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This description below is praisied from Felkin's account. The people involved are the <strong>Baganda</strong> from Uganda. We are not told why the operation is being done, only that the woman is in her early twenties, and this is her first child.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>The woman was ‘liberally supplied with banana wine, and was in a state of semi-intoxication’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and then strapped to a bed with cloth ties. The ‘surgeon’ washed his knife and hands and her stomach with water and banana wine, and then he muttered some prayers and uttered a shrill cry which was taken up by the crowd outside, he cut her stomach – abdominal wall and uterus - from belly button downwards which released the amniotic fluid (or liquor amnii as they called it in those days).</em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Bleeding points were touched with a red-hot iron by an assistant</strong>, and then the surgeon made a crossways cut and his assistant held the stomach walls open with his hand. The baby was removed and the cord cut, and then the ‘surgeon’ grabbed the contracting uterus and squeezed it a few times, then put his hand inside to remove blood clots and the placenta, and then kept applying pressure with his hands to the uterus until it had fully contracted. </em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Sounds good so far. Next bit doesn’t sound so great ‘his assistant endeavoured, but not very successfully, to prevent the escape of the intestines through the wound. The red-hot iron being used to check some further haemorrhage’.</em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>When closing up the wound, no stitches were put in the uterus, and the stomach walls were put back in place and a grass mat was strapped over the wound and the woman was turned on her side to allow all the fluid to drain. The stomach wound was pinned in place using seven very thin iron spikes, and a paste prepared from the pulp of two specific roots was plastered all over the open wound, on top of which they put a warmed banana leaf and finally a firm bandage of bark cloth. </em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Apparently the first time the woman cried out was when the stitches were put in, but an hour after the operation she appeared calm and comfortable and within two hours she was breastfeeding her baby, although for the first week it was mostly suckled by a friend. The woman had a fever for a couple of days. On the third morning the wound was redressed using the same root pulp and one <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">pin was removed, three more were removed on the fifth day and the rest on the sixth day. After eleven days the wound was completely healed. </span></em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"></span></em></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>As an aside he mentions that the baby was wounded on the right shoulder, but this was also dressed with paste and it healed after four days.</em></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you want to see the full text you can find it here; </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1720922/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1720922/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And all of that on banana wine....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, no doubt a few differences in procedure from what would happen in an operating theatre at your local hospital, but it’s pretty impressive stuff.</span></div>
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Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-49003191986042221582011-11-02T11:21:00.006+00:002011-11-09T12:00:21.003+00:00#8 Superhuman pregnant women<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: large;"><strong><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> A</strong></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong> pregnant Nepalese woman was observed carrying 36kg of firewood back to her village the day before she gave birth</strong></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wow, just absorb that fact. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">36kg. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Your average backpacker’s rucksack weighs around 25kg. A suitcase being checked in at the airport gets a 'heavy luggage' sticker to warn the baggage handlers if it weighs over 32kg. Yet here is a short, heavily pregnant woman, carrying 36kg on her back. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Makes me feel quite bad about the fuss I made about carrying the shopping in from the car, or getting an empty suitcase down from the loft when I was pregnant!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The researcher who made this observation (Catherine Panter-Brick) was interested in finding out how rural women in Nepal coped with working and being a mother.</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It appears that our challenge of combining work and motherhood is not unique.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-38wsj6jGdgo/TrElJAg8BuI/AAAAAAAAAJk/wtcDEx8jONw/s1600/Nepalese+women+carrying+wood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-38wsj6jGdgo/TrElJAg8BuI/AAAAAAAAAJk/wtcDEx8jONw/s320/Nepalese+women+carrying+wood.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She did her research in a remote area in the foothills of the Himalayas in North West Nepal, in a tiny village called Salme. I’m sure it’s very beautiful, but it sounds like a harsh life. The village is miles from anywhere so they have to be almost self-sufficient. This seemed to mean that everyone, including women – whether they were pregnant or breastfeeding – had to help out with the farmwork.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The harsh reality is that the village cannot afford to lose workers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Seems like maternity leave is an unheard of concept among these villagers. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Catherine Panter-Brick says <strong><em>“So little did working behaviour customarily change with pregnancy that it was difficult to tell whether or not a woman was pregnant, expectant mothers never fussing over their condition and clothing effectively disguising the changes in the waistline."</em></strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> She goes on to tell us that "p</span>regnancy is not announced in any way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is watched for, and often noted from very subtle cues such as a slight shift in eating or sleeping patterns, or a tighter fitting bodice. But it is not acknowledged publicly”.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You know those often-told stories about women squatting down to give birth in the fields during their lunch break, strapping the baby on their backs and then getting on with their work? Well, this is one culture where that certainly happened.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Actually what I find almost as amazing as the feats of these Nepalese women, is the lengths the researcher went to. She spent a year in this village, keeping minute by minute record of activities on a sample of 58 village women! She observed each woman for several days during 4 different seasons of the year to see how the mother’s workload influenced her breastfeeding patterns. That’s dedication.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More on those results in a future post.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">* * * </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more for yourself, have a look at:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Editors Vanessa Maher (1992) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>The Anthropology of Breast-Feeding; Natural Law or Social Construct </strong></i>Worcester UK : Billing and Sons Ltd</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Panter-Brick, C (1991) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>Lactation, birth spacing and maternal work-loads among two castes in rural Nepal</strong></i> Journal of Biosocial Science 23:137-54</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-33893560937219354692011-11-01T13:46:00.001+00:002011-11-01T13:51:03.144+00:00#7 Shameful pregnancy<div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> In many cultures women don’t, won’t or can’t tell anyone they are pregnant</strong></span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Researching my previous post about the Gusii women (#6) who have anxiety filled pregnancies, I found out that shame is one of the emotions these women associate with pregnancy.</span></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wanted to know more. Shame? At first this seems such a strange emotion to be associated with pregnancy, especially as these are married women who really want to prove their fertility and have lots of children. Why should they feel shame? </span></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In our culture, shame would rarely be associated with pregnancy, especially among married or long-term-partnered women. OK, so some of my friends did mention feeling a slight twinge of awkwardness when they told their Dads that they were pregnant, as it was often the first conversation that acknowledged they had actually had sex. And possibly some people might feel a bit sheepish admitting an unplanned pregnancy, whether it’s their first pregnancy or their fifth. But I doubt there are many scenarios where anyone would feel shame.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I decided to try to find out more about why the women feel shame, and what in particular is shameful.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have dug out quite a lot of information, and it seems that Gusii women are far from being the only ones who associate pregnancy with shame. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As we all know, pregnancy comes from having sex....</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For this very reason pregnancy is considered indecent among cultures that are particularly modest, conservative or disapproving of sexual activity. Although married women in these cultures are undoubtedly glad to be proving their worth and demonstrating their fertility, pregnancy is associated with great embarrassment and shame.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Hindu woman living in rural <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">India</span></b> shouldn’t be openly proud of her pregnancy and she is required to be even more modest than usual. She is meant to stop all contact with her own family, especially her father and any brothers, as it’s shameful for them to see her in this condition that not only demonstrates her sexuality, but also brings to mind the ‘polluting’ act of childbirth to come. She doesn’t normally tell anyone when she realises she is pregnant, and people will just eventually come to know. Her nosey mother-in-law (the newly married couple nearly always live with the husband’s family) will be watching closely for the signs – in particular looking to see whether she has her monthly purifying bath, which all women do when their period ends. If her daughter-in-law doesn’t perform this ritual bath the assumption will be that she is pregnant. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Among the Muslim villagers in rural <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Turkey</span></b> it is not culturally appropriate for a woman to tell anyone apart from her husband and mother-in-law about her pregnancy because of its unmistakeable evidence that she has had sex, and alluding to sex is not the done thing. It is difficult for people outside the family to tell whether a woman is pregnant – plumpness is a sign of beauty and prosperity and if their husbands can provide enough food most women are comfortably overweight, and their customary dress of baggy trousers and loose tunics cover up any changes in shape – and it may not be obvious until the pregnancy is well established by which time the focus will be on the baby about to arrive, rather than how it got there.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The shame of pregnancy among the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hausa</span></b> of Nigeria is extreme, it’s actually pretty hard to believe that women are having such awful experiences around the world today. In this fundamentalist Islamic male-dominated society, women have no independence and there is a huge social pressure for girls who have reached puberty to be modest and maintain purdah at all times. Sex, pregnancy and childbirth are never discussed, even between women, and a young girl entering into an arranged marriage has little idea of what lies ahead. A newly pregnant bride should not draw attention to her status, the pregnancy mustn’t be discussed with anyone and she should carry on with life as normal, acting as if nothing has changed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EgvO9AEzhQw/Tq_3MFaYOHI/AAAAAAAAAIE/pv1iOPpBrhI/s1600/Hausa+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EgvO9AEzhQw/Tq_3MFaYOHI/AAAAAAAAAIE/pv1iOPpBrhI/s320/Hausa+woman.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the heartbreaking part - so great is the sense of shame that once the baby is born, the mother is discouraged from having any relationship with her firstborn. Either the child is given away to a relative, or, if it is raised within the same walled compound by its grandmother or aunts where the mother lives, the mother and her firstborn are bound by strict cultural rules of avoidance. <span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;">These mean that for the rest of their lives the mother cannot use the child’s name, show any affection or interest towards it or even look at the child if she can help it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These are just a few examples I have found, no doubt there are more. Possibly in our own culture not so long ago pregnancy was also considered indecent? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Amazing, we all have the same biological processes going on while we are pregnant, but our experiences are so different depending on the culture that we live in.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">If you would like to read more for yourself, have a look at;</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wall, L (1998) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dead mothers and injured wives: The Social Context of Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria</i></b> Studies in Family Planning 29, 4 : 341-359<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">LeVine, R., Dixon, S (1996) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Childcare and Culture; Lessons from Africa</i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Cambridge University Press<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">DeLoache, J. & Gottlieb, A (2000) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>A world of babies; Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies</i></b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>New York:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambridge University Press<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Patricia Jeffery, Roger Jeffery, Andrew Lyon (1989) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Labour pains and labour power</i></b> Zed Books : New Jersey USA<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-3233211519492513562011-10-19T16:50:00.008+01:002011-11-01T12:10:46.121+00:00#6 NOT announcing the good news of pregnancy<div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY</u>: <em>Some Gusii women go through their whole pregnancy without taking about it to anyone </em></span></span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In today’s post I am going back to the Gusii, who live in Kenya, that I talked about in my first post #1<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. The Gusii are the culture who, as I put it, </span>are pregnant or breastfeeding for 30 years, and who prize large families.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given how important it is to get pregnant regularly and have lots of children, you would think that each time a Gusii woman found she was pregnant she would be excited and happy, and proudly announcing her news. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was very surprised to read that this is not the case. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gusii women rarely even tell their husband or children about their pregnancy, and never announce their pregnancy to anyone outside of their home. Apparently <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>‘to volunteer news would be regarded as crazy behaviour’</strong></span>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If anyone asks them if they are pregnant they don’t answer, and the researchers who lived with the Gusii tell us of ‘several cases of women who went through their entire pregnancy without speaking of it to anyone’.</span></span></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YR4fcWrdFj0/TqbXiw4nRqI/AAAAAAAAAHw/iUaaiy9THUY/s1600/Delight+at+pregnancy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YR4fcWrdFj0/TqbXiw4nRqI/AAAAAAAAAHw/iUaaiy9THUY/s1600/Delight+at+pregnancy.png" /></a></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A Gusii woman would not be able to express </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">her delight at being pregnant like this woman</span>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Can you imagine not being able to talk about your pregnancy to anyone? Throughout my three pregnancies, it was on my mind most of the time. And, not that I was a pregnancy bore (!), but many of my thoughts and conversations were either about the pregnancy or about making plans for the birth or after the baby was born. I just can’t imagine how different an experience it would be if you couldn’t share these thoughts with anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would also mean no discussion about the birth to come, certainly no NCT type of support, and apparently first time mothers go into labour knowing virtually nothing.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not telling anyone would also mean no special treatment during pregnancy. We probably could all admit playing the ‘but I’m pregnant’ card a few times to get out of tiring or exhausting work. This is not an option for these women, who have to carry on as normal - and from the sounds of it this involves a lot of heavy physical work.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Gusii women talked to the researchers about different negative emotions they associated with pregnancy. Most of them we can empathise with, such as fear of the delivery, anxiety about miscarriage or the baby having abnormalities, and how to provide for and look after another child. I’m sure not being able to refer to your pregnancy, and therefore not be able to share your worries with your mother and girlfriends would make it much worse.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One other negative emotion mentioned was shame, which I don’t find less easy to understand or empathise with. I am going to see if I can find out more about this for my next post.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once the pregnancy progresses and its existence is obvious, the woman may end up acknowledging her condition, but without pleasure. She denies being pleased, and instead complains a lot about her aches and pains and suffering. By doing this she hopes that she will be pitied, rather than envied by the other women in the village.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While some of their complaints may be genuine, the reason why women keep quiet, and then complain about the pregnancy, is because of deep superstitions. The Gusii strongly believe that pregnant women will be targeted and cursed by jealous women who are less fortunate or less fertile. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although some of this research was done a few years ago, the belief in witchcraft especially cast by barren women, is still widespread in parts of Africa.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The researchers found that this fear of jealousy, as well as it being socially unacceptable to tell anyone about pregnancy, made the women have pretty negative experiences of pregnancies. It makes me feel sorry for the women, especially as so many of them have up to ten pregnancies.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems strange that this very fertile population who take pleasure in their large families, are not able take pleasure in pregnancy, the necessary precursor to these large families. </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">* * *</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>If you want to read more yourself, have a look at:</em></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LeVine, R., Dixon, S (1996) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Childcare and Culture; Lessons from Africa</i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Cambridge University Press</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-38981684914924475362011-10-14T16:00:00.007+01:002011-11-01T12:26:46.246+00:00#5 Getting a flat stomach after birth<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>After giving birth in Malaysia, many women are massaged daily by their midwife and have their stomachs bound to help them regain their shape</em></span></span></strong><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I found out researching a previous post (#3), not all birthing experiences around the world are that enviable.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However if I had to give birth somewhere outside of the Western world, from what I’ve read so far, a rural <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Malaysian</span></b> village might be my choice. The traditional Malaysian midwives (called bidans) seem to take such gentle and nourishing care of the women they look after. Just the sort of ‘natural birth’ that we romanticise.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The bidan gives expert care during pregnancy and labour, but what really strikes me as so lovely is the postnatal care that the mother receives in the weeks after she has given birth. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While some of the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth around the world that I read about make me cry in sympathy, this moves me in a different way. It makes me lament my own experience, I yearn for this in retrospect, and I can feel how much my postnatal self would have benefited from this type of postnatal care.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The bidan visits a new mother daily after she has given birth for a month or two (sometimes 44 days precisely - the time after birth that a Muslim woman is meant to keep to various postnatal restrictions), and each time she massages the mother’s stomach with her own home-made coconut oil and wraps a long cloth around her stomach. This binding is believed to return the internal organs to their correct size and place, and help the woman to regain her figure.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first massage immediately after birth is symbolic, with onions, garlic and fire ash included in the binding. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After this, the binding is taken off every day when the mother has a bath, and put back on again after the bidan’s massage (no onion, garlic or ash subsequently). They even wear the binding in bed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0T9oyih9DAw/TqbQ3zpJBCI/AAAAAAAAAHY/RSaLxREqby0/s1600/Bengkung.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0T9oyih9DAw/TqbQ3zpJBCI/AAAAAAAAAHY/RSaLxREqby0/s1600/Bengkung.jpg" /></span></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UMuBtzSbxko/TqbQ9sAfFRI/AAAAAAAAAHg/573TDhPbIsE/s1600/ikat-bengkung-234x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UMuBtzSbxko/TqbQ9sAfFRI/AAAAAAAAAHg/573TDhPbIsE/s1600/ikat-bengkung-234x300.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A woman called Jacqueline Vincent-Priya spent time with some bidans in Malaysia watching their work and technique. She vouches for the effectiveness, one of the women who had given birth a month previously and had been massaged and bound since, <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>“had a beautiful flat stomach and there was no sign that it had ever been distended with pregnancy”.</strong></span> I wish I could say the same of my own stomach!<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She met with midwives from various different cultures in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and they all told a similar story. Some used a heated metal ball for the massage, others did it for less days after birth, but they all gave regular, physical, hands-on care to the new mother and bound their stomachs.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Two things strike me about this postnatal experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Firstly, I don’t know why, but it surprises me that regaining shape is thought important. I slightly associate the idea of a postnatal girdle with the 1950s and outdated concepts of restraining underwear. In our culture today there is an idea that only the vainest of celebrities are that bothered about regaining their pre-pregnancy shape (and do it through starvation and personal trainers rather than binding), while the rest of us accept that we’ll just be a bit misshapen for a while after birth, possibly forever...<o:p> </o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pmCZQXAYWHU/TqbTq1IuQpI/AAAAAAAAAHo/Q5TLtNuAtwQ/s1600/girdle+1950s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pmCZQXAYWHU/TqbTq1IuQpI/AAAAAAAAAHo/Q5TLtNuAtwQ/s320/girdle+1950s.jpg" width="160" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1950s girdles</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Secondly, how wonderful to be looked after in that way after giving birth. Not the binding or the stomach massage particularly, but having someone else care for you and being encouraged to sink back into their capable hands. Like that feeling of abandoning your cares when you lean your head back into the basin at the hairdresser. I can’t help feeling that it’s highly unlikely that these Malaysian women would suffer postnatal depression (sadly no data available). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any equivalent we might arrange here would be viewed as a huge indulgence (plus what would you do with the baby) and would be too expensive for most women. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In our culture, or at least the way I experienced it, the postnatal time would be summed up by phrases like “childbirth is not an illness, you don’t need to lie in bed” and “back up and on your feet”. The midwives that came round to visit me after the birth concentrated on the baby’s health, and perfunctorily with my wellbeing. I got the distinct impression that I had done my bit and they had moved on. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Maybe I am the one romanticising the Malaysian experience, maybe they think “oh no, here comes the old biddy to do my massage and binding. I’ve got too much to do and don’t want her hands all over me”. But somehow I doubt it, especially given that <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>e</strong></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>ven middle-class Westernised women are likely to use a bidan’s services if not for labour, then for the massage during pregnancy and after birth</strong></span>. One of my friend’s sisters gave birth in a state of the art hospital in Kampala under Western medical care, but then was visited by a traditional bidan regularly at home afterwards. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Shall I start petitioning the NHS now for daily postnatal massages for all women?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> * * *</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just in case you want to read more yourself, have a look at:<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jacqueline Vincent-Priya<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1991) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Birth Without Doctors: Conversations with Traditional Midwives</i> </b>London : Earthscan Publications<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For a nice photo of a Malaysian bidan, see: </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35917761@N06/3881890030/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.flickr.com/photos/35917761@N06/3881890030/<o:p></o:p></span></a></div></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-54740083740676892592011-10-08T14:36:00.021+01:002011-11-01T12:14:02.265+00:00#4 Holy cow - the environmental impact of bottle feeding<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>Making cow’s milk formula for all the young babies in India would need an additional 114 million lactating cows. And that’s just India....<o:p></o:p></em></span></strong></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love the fact that someone has worked this out. It’s such a different angle to look at the breastfeeding/bottle feeding question. After 6 months I used infant formula with all three of my children, but I’d never thought about formula from this point of view.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I mentioned this to my husband, and being a typical mathematician, he immediately tried to work out if they have got it right. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a>We got roughly as far as working out that about 28 million babies are born each year in India, but then got stuck as we have no idea how many cows it takes to feed one baby.<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, whether this number is correct, it's probably in the right ball park.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I then wonder where all these cows would live, how much land would 114 million cows need? Who would look after them all? How much water would they drink, grass would they eat, and methane gas would they release into the atmosphere? <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r6m7iEXvQq8/TqLJe2xW4PI/AAAAAAAAAHI/RNHXbSzw1os/s1600/dairy+cow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r6m7iEXvQq8/TqLJe2xW4PI/AAAAAAAAAHI/RNHXbSzw1os/s1600/dairy+cow.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A quick scout round Google, suggests that for every two dairy cows you need a hectare of grazing land, so that would be 570,000 km<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></sup> for this herd of cows – an equivalent of 17% of India’s surface, or an area the size of France or Kenya. I suppose battery cows would take less space, but this gives us a rough idea of what would be involved.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If all women in the world decided to bottle rather than breastfeed then an area the size of Australia would have to be completely taken over by lactating cows to provide infant formula for all the newborns of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whereas mothers are already living on the land that they live on, and producing milk that is perfect for their babies at a cheaper price than infant formula. Lactating mothers seem to be the answer, not lactating cows. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Infant formula is one of those Western conveniences – like cars, electricity, flushing toilets – where the environmental impact would be enormous if everyone around the world used them. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> * * *</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>If you would like to read more yourself, have a look at:</em></span><br />
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</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jelliffe and Jelliffe (1978) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Human Milk in the Modern World</b> OUP : Oxford<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<ol style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></ol><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-81076401363134137862011-10-02T10:30:00.042+01:002011-11-01T12:22:28.366+00:00#3 Childbirth - are our bodies designed for it?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>Walking and talking are the reasons why women risk their lives each time they give birth</em></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s sometimes said that a picture can speak a thousand words. I think this is one of those pictures:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QHuyN02f3Uw/Tp601zd2S3I/AAAAAAAAAHA/NXHnGdM8Wdc/s1600/Picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="122" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QHuyN02f3Uw/Tp601zd2S3I/AAAAAAAAAHA/NXHnGdM8Wdc/s320/Picture.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">DARK SOLID OVAL</b> = size of baby’s head<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">WHITE OVAL</b> = size of pelvic outlet<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> If I had to draw a picture of what labour felt like, I think it would look somethingvery like the circles on the far right. Ouch! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I felt a moment of recognition when I saw this picture in Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's book about Mother Nature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just look at that large dark circle!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems that when people tell you that your body is designed for childbirth, they’re lying.... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What our bodies are designed for is being intelligent and walking upright on two feet. The net result of this during childbirth is a large head full of brains, being pushed out of a small, tilted upright, pelvis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In comparison, our great ape cousins who don’t have the smarts and walk on all fours, still have a small head that just slips out of a lovely large hole, as it were. They just grunt their babies out in the amount of time it takes us to make a cup of tea. Not that many Orangutans, Chimps or Gorillas have actually been observed giving birth in the wild or even in captivity – keepers often seem to miss the event despite checking regularly which shows how quick it must be. Compare this to our childbirth marathons which often last many painful hours, and without intervention can end in disaster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>It does seem a pretty major design flaw that women risk death each time they give birth.</strong></span> I hadn’t fully appreciated the mechanics of this before, and I'm surprised that our bodies are so badly designed for childbirth. It seems to go against evolution – surely killing off the creators of the next generation is not such a great adaptation. I suppose the overall benefit to our species of walking, running, hunting and being intelligent must make it worth it overall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But talk about women bearing the brunt of human advances. While we nearly die in childbirth, what price do men pay for their large brains and walking bodies? They come along, have their fun and impregnate us, and then it’s up to us to endure the risk of childbirth to keep the human race going while they run off and do a bit of hunting. How can men and women ever be equal when our biology is so unequal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m sure there is some sort of biblical analogy of Eve and women being punished for the sins of man. In fact I just looked it up in the bible, and in Genesis 3:16 God says to Eve after finding out about the apple <span style="color: black;"><em><span style="color: white;">"I</span><span style="color: white;"> will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall ring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."</span></em><span style="color: white;"> Nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thinking about it, this probably reflects the painful birthing experiences of women at the time that Genesis was written, sometime 5000BC.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, I digress. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have looked for some statistics to see if I am being melodramatic and actually childbirth is not that risky after all. It's not cheerful stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Western countries around 6 to 12 women die per 100,000 live births each year (to put that in context there are close to 700,000 births each year in England). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But in non-Western countries there is a huge variation in the ability to deal with the complications of labour. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Africa the average risk is as high as 870 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, but in some cultures such as the <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hausa</b> </span>of Nigeria the risk is a staggering 1,050 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births because of the consequences of female genital mutilation and their horrendous childbirth practices. Countries at war have still worse outcomes, for example Sierra Leone (2100 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births), Afghanistan (1,800 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births) or Niger (1,800 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births).</span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cumulative effect is worse – a Scandinavian woman has a lifetime risk of dying in childbirth of 1 in 25,000 compared to 1 in 8 for rural African women. And the awful fact is that in the non-Western world for every woman that dies, around 30 more end up with serious or humiliating birthing injuries that affect them for life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These statistics certainly make me question the advocates of natural, intervention-free childbirth. I’ll take the hospital birth with all the medicines I can lay my hands on thanks!</span></div>
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</span><em>If<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> you want to read more yourself, have a look at:</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.who.int/topics/maternal_health/en/">http://www.who.int/topics/maternal_health/en/</a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blaffer Hrdy, S (1999) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Mother Nature; A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection</i></b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>United States of America : Pantheon Books</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Rosenberg, K and Trevathan, W (1006) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bipedalism and human birth: The obstetrical dilemma revisited </i></b>Evolutionary Anthropology 4 (5): 161-168</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lindburg, DG and Lester Dessez Hazell (1972) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Licking of the neonate and duration of labour in great apes and man</i> </b>American Anthropologist Vol74 p318-325</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wall, L (1998) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dead mothers and injured wives: The Social Context of Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria</i></b> Studies in Family Planning 29, 4 : 341-359<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-83721868422924696142011-09-25T21:56:00.031+01:002011-11-01T12:28:03.522+00:00#2 Conception with two fathers, how does that work?<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>In many Amazonian cultures, people believe that a child can be fathered by more than one man<o:p></o:p></em></span></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is such a brilliant find – I just love it. It’s so different, and as you will see, it seems like a very rare example of an occasion where women have got one over on the men.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I first came across a few passing comments to this belief in a book by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and have now <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>managed to follow up some of her references to find out more.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s not a strange one-off, it is found far and wide throughout the Amazon in hunter-gatherer cultures living thousands of miles apart – for example the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Bari</span></b> and <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Yanamami</b> </span>of Venezuela, the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Canela</span></b>, <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mehinaku</b> </span>and <span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Awawete</b> </span>of Brazil, the<span style="font-size: large;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ache</b></span> of Paraguay and the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Matis </span></b>of Peru. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The exact details differ depending on the specific group but the basics are the same – they believe that any men that a woman has sex with around the time of conception are that child’s fathers, plural! </span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Any ‘extra’ fathers who are believed to be responsible for the child’s creation, are expected to provide that child with food, especially sharing any meat they hunt. As a result children with more than one father have a better survival rate than children who just have one. </span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems that men and women marry and live as a family, and the husband will always be the principal or social father of the wife’s children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">However, around the time of conception and just after it, the wife will specifically seek to have sex with one or more other men, usually with her husband’s consent.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s a mystery how this belief ever came about, especially as it’s known that children can be conceived by just one father. It clearly helps the mother as she has more food for her children (not to mention some unusual license to spice up her sex life). The community as a whole must benefit if more children survive - but it seems that the men suffer by having to share the game they have hunted more widely. What’s in it for them?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Possibly some sort of sexual prowess is a compensating factor for the men, and in general this belief seems to be acknowledged with humour among these peoples. While the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mehinaku</span></b> joke about it as an ‘all male collective labour project’ the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ache</span></b> even have specific vocabulary to describe the intricacies of it; ‘miare’ means “the father who put it in”; ‘peroare’ means “the men who mixed it”; ‘momboare’ means “the ones who spilled it out” and ‘bykuare’ means “the father who provides the child’s essence”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Canela</span></b> of Brazil are another group who have this belief, and are a pretty remarkable society. There are only 1,300 of them living in one large village in the middle of nowhere in the Amazon, and studying them has been a life’s work for this one guy, Bill Crocker, who started his field work with them in 1957 and was still going in 2000. Its not clear if he is the one obsessed with sex, or the Canela are the ones obsessed with sex, but there is a lot of sex in his observations. Boys and girls start being sexually active very early, have sex with older women or men to “gain strength” from them, girls are expected enjoy group sex with groups of men learning “to create group joy with her body” and it goes on. Although unfortunately he never tells us (maybe he never asked) how the women feel about all this sex.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, back to multiple fathers. So among the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Canela</b>, Crocker says that <em>”during her pregnancy, a woman begins to think about whom she wants as contributing fathers for the ‘biological’ formation of her foetus, and looks around for chances to have love trysts with such men”</em>. She chooses men based on their abilities to hunt and farm as well as their personality traits, all of which are believed to be passed through their semen to the child. She arranges <em>“to have sex privately with each of these men in the usual manner”</em> (note that there is a usual manner for such things!), who have little choice but to comply especially once she has told them she is pregnant as refusing a pregnant woman is believed to cause a miscarriage. At the birth of a child there is normally some way that contributing fathers are forced to acknowledge paternity and therefore, their responsibility towards that child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Bari </span></b>living in the Venezuelan Amazon are not as promiscuous as the Canela and the only time most women would take a lover is during early pregnancy - with her husband’s knowledge. A detailed study of 111 Bari women found that two thirds of them had taken a lover for at least one of their pregnancies. Between them they had given birth to a total of 897 children (which incidentally means an average of at least eight successful pregnancies each!) a quarter of which had secondary fathers. Their study showed that children with secondary fathers definitely benefited; 80% of them survived to the age of 15, compared to just 64% with a single father.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The researchers suggested that the small amounts of extra animal protein the children get from their secondary fathers makes a crucial difference to survival. I wonder if it isn’t more to do with the mothers – maybe it’s the alpha mothers who go out and take a lover, and they are more likely to be healthy themselves and have help in looking after their children.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In comparison to many of the customs around the world which seem to allow men to take advantage of women (men marrying many wives, women waiting hand and foot on their husbands who sit under the trees chatting), this is a nice example of the reverse.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><em>If you want to read more yourself, have a look at:</em></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beckerman, S et al<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>(1998)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bari partible paternity project; preliminary results</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>Current Anthropology 39(1):164-167<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Crocker, W and Crocker, J (1990) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Canela: An ethnographic introduction</i></b> Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://anthropology.si.edu/canela/literature/monograph/toc.htm"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://anthropology.si.edu/canela/literature/monograph/toc.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blaffer Hrdy, S (1999) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Mother Nature; A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection</i></b><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>United States of America : Pantheon Books</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hill, K and Hurtado, M (1996) Ache Life History: The ecology and demography of a foraging people New York : Hawthorne<o:p></o:p></span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294192603725858081.post-45428050195995557892011-09-18T13:11:00.012+01:002011-11-01T12:30:33.560+00:00#1 Pregnant or breastfeeding for 30 years<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>FACT OF THE DAY:</u> <em>Some women hardly have a period their whole life because they are constantly pregnant or breastfeeding<o:p></o:p></em></span></span></b></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have been reading a book about a group of people called the <span style="color: black;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;">Gusii</span></b> </span>who live in the Western highlands of Kenya where the rain falls abundantly and the soil is rich. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is written by a husband and wife team who spent many years living in Kenya getting to know the Gusii people. They were particularly interested in how the Gusii looked after their babies and brought up their children.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the time of their research (1970s) the Gusii lived the classic African life. You can picture the scene; groups of round huts with thatched rooves surrounded by playing children, men tending their large herds of cattle and women working in the fields. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Less typical, was the impressively large number of children that most Gusii women conceived, gave birth to and raised successfully. The Gusii have one of the highest fertility rates in the world, typically most women give birth to 10 children and lose 2 along the way. This is around one or two more surviving children per mother than in most parts of East Africa. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XKZu5wxbPYc/TqLLLYm1xxI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/JeyvGfJgZcQ/s1600/Young_gusii_girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XKZu5wxbPYc/TqLLLYm1xxI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/JeyvGfJgZcQ/s320/Young_gusii_girl.jpg" width="215" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During their research they found that most mothers had been pregnant or breastfeeding (enough to stop them menstruating) for virtually all their reproductive years. <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><em><span style="color: white;">One 49 year old woman they talked to could only remember having had two periods at all in her life.</span></em></b> </span></span>It seems that what we euphemistically refer to as a woman’s “childbearing years” literally are a woman’s childbearing years for Gusii women! <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Women have relatively long gaps between each child, maybe two to three years (any less is thought reckless). Without birth control this is achieved partly because men usually have more than one wife to “visit” to satisfy their needs. From marrying at 18 until the menopause at 45, a child every three years would result in the desired ten children over a lifetime, and an astonishing 30 years of non-stop looking after young children.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Can you imagine? The thought of so many pregnancies and labours to endure, as well as uninterrupted sleep and never-ending breastfeeding for so many years sounds torturous to me! Then there are the actual children to bathe, clothe, clean and feed - oh and not to forget the planting, ploughing and harvesting of the crops as well as collecting the water. And there’s me complaining about putting on the dishwasher and unpacking the shopping.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suppose the mothers will at least have plentiful older children to pitch in. In fact, from the age of 5 years, older siblings are expected to look after the smaller ones during the day while the mother works in the fields. But probably the key difference is that life aims and expectations are so different - this is actually what the women want, rather than being an issue of no access to birth control. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bearing many children is their goal, being fertile and having a large family is valued over all else. As the author says “women fervently desire the maximum number of surviving children”. Giving birth to their tenth child is possibly the equivalent in our society of a lawyer becoming partner of their firm or a doctor being made consultant. It is the pinnacle. In fact, women proactively take steps to keep getting pregnant on a regular basis. If their husband stops visiting them or he becomes impotent, they are entitled to go to his brother to get ‘impregnated’ for the rest of her childbearing years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It seems people will do almost anything if it's culturally appropriate<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">* * *<br />
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</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>If you want to read more yourself, have a look at:<o:p></o:p></em></span><br />
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<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LeVine, R., Dixon, S (1996) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Childcare and Culture; Lessons from Africa</i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New York: Cambridge University Press</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://www.who.int/topics/maternal_health/en/<o:p></o:p></span></div>Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18288117874782691683noreply@blogger.com3