Week One: My Birthing Experience

I don't have any children of my own, and have never been overly involved in a birthing process.  I have helped friends through pregnancies, and have worked co-taught with pregnant women, but I've never actually seen a birth.  Therefore, the only firsthand experience I have with the birthing process is my own birth.  I spoke with my mother to find out what it was like for her.  When I asked her how long she was in labor with me, she responded, "I don't know, seven years?!"  This put into perspective just how hard it must be.  I know that everyone always says how painful it is, but my mother is a strong woman, and it must have been awful for her to remember it so clearly after 27 years.  However, in actuality, she was in labor with me for eight hours.  I was born in a hospital, under the care of a doctor and nurse.  My mother sat up through her delivery; she said that she didn't when my older sister was born and she wanted to be able to see me come into the world.  She received an epidural.  I was told that my entire head came out and then my parents heard a loud crack; my mother had broken her tail bone.  My mother is a small woman; five feet, one inch and was 97 pounds when she became pregnant.  I was sixteen inches long and nearly ten pounds at birth.  In addition to her broken tail bone, my vocal chords had been bruised in the birth canal.  My mother held me for forty-five minutes before the nurses took me for my first bath.  My mom was in the hospital with me for four days; my father came to hold me every night and my sister and grandmother visited every day.

I feel that my birth was a typical birth in American culture.  When researching other cultures and how the birthing process is there, I found that many people experience the beginning of life very differently than I do.  The country whose birthing process I found most interesting was Tibet.  Tibetan culture is rich in ritual, and this is the same for the when a woman gives birth.  There are seven stages of childbirth; preconception, conception, gestation, birth, after the birth, bonding, and infancy.  During the actual birth, there are mantras recited hundreds of times by the father, and he helps when needed, although the birth is conducted by a midwife.  The father and other elders bless a pad of llama butter, and the mother can eat it to help ease the pain of labor.  If labor is particularly hard, the mother will eat a piece of dried fish from a sacred lake in Tibet. The fish "brings blessings and spiritual grace to the woman who takes it, and so eases her mind and helps her relax, allowing the baby to come sooner."  The midwife may also give the mother "traditional herbal preparation" to help the baby when the contractions are close together.  


It was interesting to read about the way in which a baby is brought into the world in a different culture.  My mother gave birth with the assistance of medical professionals and with the help of an epidural to ease the pain.  Whereas, women in Tibet believe that butter that is blessed will help to ease their pain, because it will remind them of a rich comfort food and will relax their mind.  I feel that by speaking with my mother and researching the birthing process of another culture, I have gained a better understanding.  Giving birth is an individual experience.  Even though culture influences us in how we chose to bear our children, the actual birth is the mother and child's and is an intimate and miraculous experience that only the mother will ever really know and understand.  Regardless of rituals and cultural influence, childbirth is a difficult yet amazing experience that effects both mother and child.


Resources:
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC31/Farwell.htm