Childbirth--In Your Life and Around the World

The birth of my first son was in 1969 on Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, S.C.  This was my first experience away from my very loving grandmother.  I found myself in a very cold and masculine military world, and I tried my best to cope with it.  My first husband actually gave me these instructions, “be strong and don’t embarrass me by making noise or screaming.”  In other words, the showing of my pain would make him look like less than a man.  My first and second trimesters were mild; it wasn’t until the 34^th week when I started clotting.  I was rushed to the hospital 6 times only to be told there was nothing wrong, because when I was examined they couldn’t find anything.  I told this southern general that I was dropping clots that looked like large pieces of liver, he said, "impossible".  My husband didn’t pick up the samples and take them in, and I was too afraid to pick them up.  Finally, in my 36^th week it happened again, but this time when Dr. Stafford examined me, a look of astonishment covered his face as he frantically tore the gloves off  and called for emergency surgery. As they were putting me under the anesthesia, I heard the words placenta previa.   When I finally came to, I asked what I had delivered, and the nurse said a boy As I felt bandages on my stomach. I asked if I had a c section, the answer was yes.   I felt less than a person, I was just a non-commissioned military wife and I felt expendable.   That experience left me feeling less than human. I was trapped between a husband and the military.  With all of the physical pain I was in, I was expected to show some type of strength by being quiet.  I chose this example because the mother is an important factor in the birthing process, and I was left out of this process. My baby and I could have died due to my exclusion in the process of giving birth. I believe that bonding between the mother and child starts at the  prenatal stage.  Talking, and playing music to the baby in utero, as well as eating well play a significant role in the bonding process.  The love that a mother gives to her new born helps the development of the baby.    Because of the lack of support I received at the time of my son’s birth, I give my son the attention I was missing from his father and the doctor.  My son and I to date are very close, and believe it was the bond that was created at birth.

According to Carroll Dunham,  author  of Mamatoto: A Celebration of Birth in many countries in Africa, and Asia,  at the last stages of pregnancy the expected mother is taken to her family to be pampered and cared for.  This was a surprise because that is exactly what my grandmother did for her daughters.  They came to our house about a week before delivery, and they were treated royally.  After the baby was born they came to our house, and their husbands visited them and sometimes stayed there, but my aunts didn’t have to do anything except hold and feed her baby.  This was a wonderful two week experience for all.  After those two weeks she was given back to her husband, but when he went to work we went over to their home to continue to assist her every week.    

My grandmother was born in 1900, and her grandmother was a slave I do believe that many of my family’s practices were passed down from our mother country Africa through verbal translation.