I remember the birth of each of my children like it was yesterday. Each was completely different and each made me feel differently as far as being a new mother and the new things I would do with that particular child. In the readings I learned more about how the mental state of the mother effects the fetus. The first birth was a boy, I was 18 and in a different state of mind than with the later births. This child was later diagnosed with cerebal palsy and developmentally delayed. I am not sure if my worrying about having a child so young, without being married or what everyone would, think had anything to do with his problems, but as a young mother of course i blamed myself. With each of the other births I know that I was extra nervous as each birth got closer because of the unknown.
As I looked at births around the world I choose to focus on Guatemala. This is the population that i am in most contact with in my classroom so I thought I would find out more about the beginning life of the mothers and grandmothers of the children that i deal with. What I found is that most of the midwives have minimal to no training,lack the skills to provide life threatening techniques to expecting babies or mothers mothers. Women that take on the midwife (Comadronas)role are normally women that is trusted in the community and are usually older respected women. Some of the problems that take place is the lack of vehicles to get to the doctors or hospital, sanitation areas and even the location of a help center. Like my own births i had much family support. So I found that in most non-Western cultures the birth of a child in this area of care is the same. The family members (especially female relatives) provide strong social support and take care of the majority of the mothers and the new born child needs. The midwife continues to also provide care and support of the mother and child.(Holroyd et al., 1997;Nahas & Amashen, 1999).
With the birthrate in these rural ares (BIRTH RATE: 39.6 births per 1000 persons) http://www.quetzalnet.com/c_profile.html so low i understand why a lot of these families make every attempt to come to the US. Here they receive the proper care for the mother and child. They also learn better ways to insure a healthy and happy child.
3 comments:
LaTina,
I think all mothers worry about the baby they are carrying and praying they are doing everything right. Even when we have done our best it does not always go as we have planned, like my first childbirth experience, with an emergency c section.
I found your information about Guatemala interesting.
I related to your post as I worried the same with my first child which I had at 18. I definitely felt more prepared with my other two boys, but still worried too.
LaTina,
While I have never experienced the ups and downs of pregancy and childbirth, I do remember that completely lost feeling of what had I done when I had a doctor tell me that I was infertile. Every thought in my mind was that I had done something wrong, fortunately for me that doctor was wrong but it was a very strenous timefor my husband and myself. And now as I look back over that time I realize as I am sure you do with your own children that to everything there is a time and a season though we might not know or understand the reason.
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