Reproduction & women’s health issues

[Pages:20]Reproduction & women's health issues

Readings: McElroy & Townsend Chapter 6 (pages 218-263) The Cost of Childbirth Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking: Maternal Detachment and Infant Survival in a Brazilian Shantytown

Reproduction & Women's Health Issues

"Like other life processes, conception, pregnancy and birth are rooted in biology but patterned by culture. Cultural expectations during pregnancy vary." (McElroy & Townsend p218).

Cultural expectations surrounding pregnancy & childbirth vary widely, as 3 birth stories ? from Southern Africa, Mexico, & Russia ? illustrate.

Alba Casama gives a demonstration of the traditional Embera birthing method relying upon help of a partera, or midwife

Women's UN Report Network

Panama: Pregnancy & Birthing Traditions of the Embera People of Panama

Reproduction & Women's

Health Issues

McElroy & Townsend cite

tendency in Western

biomedicine to "medicalize"

&"pathologize"

physiological processes

such as:

Pregnancy (page 226-230)

childbirth (page 234-236)

One World Birth

breastfeeding (page 206-209) MicroBirth Indiegogo Campaign menopause (page 236-237).



Malawi How `secret mothers'

make childbirth safer

? By law, women in Malawi must give birth in hospital or medical clinic

if they fail to do so, the village chief can fine them.

? In 2006, the country launched a series of measures to make motherhood safer

? Since then rate of maternal death has declined -- from 840 deaths per 100,000 births in 2000, to 460 per 100,000 in 2010, according to the World Health Organization.

? MamaYe

Men perform a traditional 'nsindo' dance, while singing about the importance of giving birth in a hospital. This group has written several songs about safe motherhood and performs them in villages around central Malawi.

Chief Kwataine (left) spends much of his time speaking with other traditional leaders about the importance of "secret mothers." He is assisted by Timothy Bonyonga (right), the community mobilization coordinator for Malawi's Safe Motherhood Initiative.

Georgina Paul walked for more than two hours to give birth at this rural medical clinic run by the Christian Health Association of Malawi. She arrived three weeks before her due date and stayed in a maternity waiting home at the clinic.

Sister Masoya, who oversees the delivery room at this rural medical clinic, is trained as a midwife. She says she and the other nurses have seen fewer complicated deliveries since Malawi's Safe Motherhood Initiative began in 2006.

Peru: The Waiting Home

? To prevent women from giving birth at home, where they face a higher risk of death, Peru has established a network of maternal "waiting houses."

? These residential facilities host women during their final weeks of pregnancy so they can give birth in the presence of skilled attendants.

? Ana Mar?a Bolege, 21, has come to a waiting house in the Andean town of Ayacucho, eight hours by road from Peru's capital, Lima.

Reproduction & Women's Health Issues

Reproductive health has both biological &

cultural aspects.

Wide variety of issues concerning women: Obstetric practice in childbirth & risk of maternal mortality. Video: Birth of a Surgeon Video: Ghana: Midwives Deliver Cultural beliefs about menstruation & health, diet, infertility, abortion, contraception, menopause.

Childbirth in developing world

In lesser developed countries complications of pregnancy & childbirth are leading causes of death & disability among women of reproductive age (15-44).

~ half of 120 million women giving birth each year experience some complications during pregnancies. Between 15-20 million develop disabilities such as severe anemia, incontinence, damage to reproductive organs or nervous system, chronic pain, & infertility. Dead Women Walking

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