Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Grace Whitbeck
26 September 2017
Reflection 1
This book provided me with a lot of new incite regarding the varying processes and
views of childbirth and pregnancy across cultures. I learned a lot of new information about the
influence of culture on varying societal perceptions of pregnancy, health, and medicine. For
example, I didn’t know it was possible to correct or improve the health and position of a fetus by
non-medicinal techniques, including massaging and manipulating or moving the position of the
mother during birth. Before reading this book I was completely unaware of the specific and non-
interventionist ways of providing care to pregnant mothers, nor how helpful they are during the
birth process. Jordan (1993) details the extent to Doña Juana’s skills in chapter two as she states:
The massage is an integral part of Doña Juana’s skills. She gives not only prenatal
massages but also various types of curative and diagnostic massages to both men and
women. Thus, she will apply her skilled hands to sore muscles, sprains, abdominal
trouble, and non-specific complaints, as when a person “just doesn’t feel well”. (p. 26)
This leads into my second revelation after reading this book: pregnancy can either be treated as a
normal part of life or a pathological condition. In the Yucatan, women treat pregnancy as an
ordinary walk of life, as displayed in the above quote that displays an equivocal level of training
necessary to care for common soreness as well as pregnancy. I was aware that American
medicine focuses a lot more on drug use and technological treatments than holistic, herbal, or
non-intrusive remedies; however, I did not know that although 25% of pregnancies are actually
emergency circumstances, American doctors treat 100% of pregnant mothers as if they are in
2
need of emergency care. In chapter 5, Jordan (1993) lists the standard list of complex practices
including induction, chemical stimulation of labor, surgical rupturing of the membranes, routine
episiotomies, the lithotomy position for delivery, heavy reliance on cesarean sections, and the
administration of analgesics and anesthetics, all of which require the presence of a physician for
birth (p. 124). Not only is the American system more reliant on technology than is necessary, we
actually have obtained a cyclical way of providing care, so American patients are reliant on this
kind of intensive process. I found it very interesting that even in other developed countries, such
as Sweden and Holland, although technological methods and anesthetics are used, the patients
are far more informed and aware of the process of birthing, their available choices, their bodies,
and what each possible drug will do. With that, each culture has their own method of informing
mothers of the birthing process. For example, I learned that Yucatan women are not allowed to
see or learn of the process of birthing until they go through it themselves. This leads to the idea
that different cultures possess different learning methods: whereas American students learn by
lecture, memorization, and exams, Yucatan women learn in a more effective manner through
experience. During her fieldwork, Jordan (1993) explains the global lack of understanding of the
I will argue that one crucial reason for the failure of training programs lies in
Furthermore, the issue described above uncovers the immense problem of authoritative
knowledge and the general lack of value for the knowledge acquired and practiced regarding
After reading this book, my thinking has changed to be a lot more curious about other
cultures and the care they practice regarding birth. I have adopted a much more sensitive
understanding of the variance in knowledge, learning methods, and perspectives and practices of
medical care cross culturally. Overall, I now see a huge need for more developed and lesser
developed countries to learn from one another, instead of just relying on the expansion of
technologically advanced methods that are not always the most helpful method. In my opinion,
authoritative knowledge is the greatest plague that any nation could suffer from, and there is a lot
for the United States to learn as far as providing and extending the most helpful, most holistic,
and least intrusive care before, during, and after childbirth. As displayed through the entirety of
Jordan’s (1993) writing, childbirth is (and should be treated as) a natural process that has been
occurring for thousands of years. Therefore, to me it seems to be harmful to the body and soul to
provide care that reflects the isolated and technologically dependent state of the United States
over adopting, or at least considering, the organic and communally centered process of birth that
References
Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press,
Inc.