Giving birth has been on my mind almost constantly for the
past six months. The day is quickly approaching when I will be going through
this myself, my current due date is August 29th. This has had me
looking into my own birth 25 years ago. I was the fourth child my mother gave
birth to, and unfortunately I had the most complicated birth process. Two of my
other siblings had birth defects; cleft lip and the other has a form of mental
retardation. My birth resulted in a normal child, but was very long and
complicated. I actually became lodged in the birth canal, after my head and
shoulders had made their way out. The doctors had to break my hips to remove me
from the birth canal. This resulted in me having to wear leg braces that looked
like overalls for the first few months of my life. Learning about this has me
worried for my own child’s birth, but I have been reassured by my midwife that
I have great birthing hips and the same situation is very unlikely. I guess we shall
see soon enough…
A few years ago my parents graciously gifted me a mission
trip to El Salvador for my graduation from college. The mission trip was mainly
a medical trip. On the trip we visited different villages that had little to no
medical access, running water, and sanitation systems. Yet there were plenty of
children running around and plenty of infants being held in their mother’s
arms. Births in El Salvador do not usually happen in a hospital or clinic; they
happen at home. There is no doctor or midwife on call, just family and friends
who have gone through it themselves. Birth is a much more religious experience
there instead of a medical experience here. Much prayer is done before, during,
and after birth. There is a higher instance of fatalities for both the mother
and the child; El Salvador has a 26.66 infant mortality rate from 1995-2010
whereas the U.S. is at 7.07 for the same years. Reflecting on this knowledge, I
am not sure that my mother and I would have survived the birthing process if we
were living in El Salvador at the time. The doctors realized that I was stuck
and broke the bones, if this were done by the women in my family they may have
damaged my mother or I too much for us to survive. However, World Vision (and
my close friend Daniella Flamenco) is currently working with women in El
Salvador teaching them “food preparation, newborn care, prenatal care and hand
washing” (Maldonado, 2012).
References
Maldonado, K. D. (2012, January 9). El Salvador: World Vision promotes child nutrition and
maternal health. Retrieved June 29, 2012 from http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/updates/A76995E889B0AA338825798000776F04?opendocument
