womens antrho homework

so here is the paper that i had to write up for my womens anthropology class. i had fiona edit it. she did not edit the ending though because of the fact that i had not writen that much when i sent it to her...so the ending probs sucks but the rest is realy good. umm ya for this paper i basically had to write about my birth, so just a warning thats what is writen here. alos this is really long..just a heads up. anyway enjoy :

Comparing my birth with many others North American births, mine was a complicated and risky business. This was because both of my parents carried genetic deficiencies that put the women and the baby at high risk of not surviving the labour process. In my father, the genetic issue was that the thirteenth chromosome had an extra hook. This defect makes it highly unlikely for fetus survival. My mother’s genetic defect was developed over time because she had a miscarriage in her past. The doctors told her that she would have a good chance of having Placentia previa in her future if she were to have children again. Of the circumstances that my mother went through because of the miscarriage, she needed to have Amniocenteses. This was to test a baby’s chromosomes to make sure that they were both healthy and surviving.

Unlike my birth, my older brother was born under normal circumstances of a North American culture. He went through the smooth procedure of delivery without a trace of alarm. On the other hand, my birth was an event of panic and fear of survival.

It started off the way most births would start off in a North American culture. When my mother started getting contractions, my dad instantly decided that she needed to be driven to the hospital. In the summer of 1989, however, there was a nurse’s strike and the hospital was short staffed and low on beds. When my parents first showed up at the hospital, the nurses had my mom walk around for a bit to wait to see how serious it was. After what the nurses considered a throughout assessment of my mother’s condition, they concluded that she was not ready to give birth and told her to go home. At the time of my brother’s birth in 1987, there was no nurse’s strike and my mother was let in right away. Unfortunately, in my case my mother was just told to hang around and walk around because of the lack of staff then eventually told to go home. On the way home after being told to leave, my mother and my father started to notice that she was bleeding a lot. So my father turned around and drove back to the hospital. When they got back to the hospital the nurses became aware of how much my mother was bleeding and started to worry. As a result of the crucial condition that my mother was in (by the time that she was ready to give birth to me) there was a lot of technology used. There was a lot less technology used in my brother’s birth.

For my brothers birth there was a heart rate monitor for the mother and for the baby, as well as other monitors to keep watch of the mother and the Childs vital signs. As well, my mother asked to take an epidural to take away the pain of childbirth. As for my birth, because of the fact that it was more complicated, there was a lot more technology. This technology was mainly needed because of the fact that I was a c-section baby. The technology that was used during this process was an ultrasound, and an aesthetic to make my mother unconscious during the c-section. As well because my mother was losing a lot of blood she needed to have a blood transfusion. After I was born I was placed in an incubator and fed through a feeding tube; I had been born seven weeks premature. My parents note that if it had not been for all of this technology, they do not believe that I or my mother would be alive today.

With my brothers birth there was no c-section for he came out quickly and painlessly. With my birth a c-section was needed. This was because, like the doctors had speculated earlier, my mother was suffering from Placentia previa. The placenta was tearing away from the uterus and my life support as a fetus had been failing. This was the reason my mother started to lose a lot of blood. Because of this my mother was unable to make any decisions. During my birth the doctor actually came out to my dad and gave him three options to choose from. The first one was that they continue to try natural labour and that there was a very low chance that either my mother or I would survive. The second option was that the doctors try to enduce labour. With that option the doctors said that only I would survive. The third option was a c-section. The doctor told my father that both my mother and I had a fifty percent survival rate. My father tells me that he saw that he only had one option, and that was the c-section.

In both my older brother’s birth, and mine my father had the option to attend and watch. My father attended my brother’s birth but, he did not attend mine. The doctor did give him the option to be present at my birth but because of the seriousness of the situation, my father did not feel it would do any good for him to be in there. He said that he felt if he were to go into the delivery room with everything that was going on he would just get in the way. Although my father does say he regrets that decision and that he wanted to be in the room. He said that he felt that the doctor had pressured him into not going into the room. The doctor was the one that made him feel like he would be in the way, and that him being there would not do any good.

Well in North American culture my brother’s birth can be seen as normal. The use of technology was normal. Things such as epidermal are seen as quite normal in today’s standards of birth. This is because mothers do not wish to feel the pain, and unlike in some other cultures it is not considered a loss in experience, or at lest it was not considered a loss in the experience for my mother. Through out my brother birth both my parents made the decisions as a couple. The decisions were not just left up to one person. Because my parents felt as a couple they could make decisions together and without it being a stressful situation such as my birth they had the time to do so. Also during my brother’s birth my father was allowed to attend. And did attend. There was no pressure felt from the doctors or from anyone else making him feel that he should not attend or that he had to attend. Well my birth I don’t believe can be seen as normal, for this culture. There was extra use of technology. This technology was needed at the time so that my mother and I could survive, but it was more what doctors would normally use. During the birthing process it was mainly left up to my father to make the major decisions. This could be considered unusual as most mothers are making the decisions during their own birthing process, or a couple makes them together but given the situation it was left up to my father. Also the last thing that makes my birthing process different was the fact that my father was unable to witness the birth. Not because he was no allowed to, but because he felt pressured by the doctors not too due to my mothers situation. In comparison my mother’s whole birthing experience with my brother can be seen as the more normal experience for most mothers in North American culture. Well the majority of the experiences that my mothers when through during the birthing experience with me are not viewed as quite so normal.