My Birth

On September 2, 1988 my mother started having contractions around 10 p.m. (M. Rose, personal communication, October 31, 2013). She and my father got to the University of the West Indies Hospital around 11 p.m. where the contractions continued for the rest of the night and the following day. My father left the hospital that night but returned the following morning. He had to leave again to inform his aunt and my grandmother of my impending birth, by the time he returned I was born (M. Rose, personal communication, October 31, 2013).

 My mother was registered and shown to a room on the maternity ward (M. Rose, personal communication, October 31, 2013). She was taken to another room where she was given an enema. Afterwards she returned to the first room. While she waited in this room there was a doctor that stayed with her and massaged her stomach whenever she got contractions. She was put on a drip after a couple of hours because she had not eaten since her enema. After more than 13 hours had passed she was finally put on a gurney and taken to the delivery room. She was told to push each time she felt a contraction. When she did, she screamed from the pain. It got harder for her to push because she had not eaten for hours and was feeling very weak. At one point she had to stop pushing, which was hard for her, because I had started crowning. The doctor then performed an episiotomy on her. When I finally came out she felt a huge relief and emptiness. I was born at 1:15pm on a Saturday. The attending nurse cut my umbilical cord and I was shown to my mother some time afterwards. She was told to look and determine my gender and to count my fingers and toes. Then a tag was put on my arm and I was taken away from her. She describes me as being extremely tiny, tall and pink with long black hair. I weighed 6 pounds. My mother was not given an epidural at any point during my birth (M. Rose, personal communication, October 31, 2013).

 I was too young to remember anything about this event. I wrote about it because it is the only birthing experience that I have been a part of. Birth can have a tremendous influence on a child’s development. Birthing conditions need to be ideal for bringing a new life into the world. During birth many complications can arise and if these are not addressed immediately and effectively the child can be affected for the rest of his or her life. For example if the umbilical cord starts choking the baby and cuts off his or her oxygen supply to the brain this could lead to developmental problems.

 In 2005 in Japan 98.8% births occured in hospital or private clinics and 1.2% of births occurred in maternity homes and homes (Matsuoka & Fumikoa, 2009). “In Japan, labor pain is considered as an important and necessary element of childbirth as a woman grows into motherhood through the experience of pain” (Matsuoka & Fumikoa, 2009). Most Japanese women do not use any pain reliever during birth. They think that enduring the pain and going through natural birth is best and that this also facilitates bonding with their child. (Matsuokoa & Fumikoa, 2009). According to Fiedler (1996) “medical intervention such as epidural analgesic use, induced labour, episiotomy, and instrumental deliveries, are relatively common procedures in abnormal or 'difficult' births in Japan, compared to a very low level of intervention for normal births”. My birth bears a lot of similarity to a birth in Japan, the only exception being that an episiotomy was performed during my birth.

 References

Fiedler DC. (1996) Authoritative knowledge and birth territories in contemporary Japan. Med Anthropol Q., 10(2),195–212. doi: 10.1525/maq.1996.10.2.02a00060. Matsuoka E., & Fumikoa H. (2009).

Maternity Home in Japan. In R. Davis-Floyd, L. Barclay, B.A. Daviss, & J. Titten (Eds.), Birth Models That Work (pp. 213-238). Berkeley, California: University of California Press.