Traditional Birth Experience Provides Volunteer With New Insight
Michelle Whalen is a CRISPAZ volunteer from Melbourne,
Australia. She has been working in El Salvador for 4 years,
working on education and women’s projects. The following
is the account of one of her numerous experiences in the
community of Nueva Esperanza, Department of Usulután.
I was recently visiting my friend Angela, the community
midwife. We were relaxing in her hammock when two women
arrived in need of Angela’s services for their sister.
She invited me to come along and I jumped at the chance!
For many Salvadorans the attitude towards pain is that
it is a part of life, so “put up with it and get
on with the job!” This was certainly the attitude
shared by Angela and by the young woman’s mother.
Naturally the mother-to-be was groaning softly with pain.
Her mother would come to her periodically, and reproach
her through gritted teeth to “be strong.” At
one stage, she brought a raw egg to the her daughter and
poured it down her throat, “to give her strength,” she
told me. For me, that alone would have been torture! A
couple of hours later the mother came to see her daughter,
again telling her to be quiet and to be strong. “Well,
give me another egg then!” cried the girl. Sure enough,
another egg was dispatched down her throat. I think that
the request for the second egg actually horrified me more
than the act itself.
The dog was in and out of the room, hiding under the
bed so that we wouldn’t see her. Light was provided
by candle and by my flashlight. On top of it all, the mosquitoes
were busy. My job was to time the contractions and to hold
the flashlight for the examinations and for the birth.
About an hour before the baby was born, Angela had to
return to her house to get another pair of sterile gloves.
I was instructed to hold down the fort. The future grandmother
came in and asked how things were going. “The same,” I
replied, as confidently as possible. I don’t think
she trusted me because she checked for herself. She nodded
in agreement. She went away and didn’t come back
again until the final pushes.
I had imagined a more caring setting: the traditional
midwife, the woman’s mother and sisters gathered
around in a female ritual. However, the reality was that
she was left totally alone until the actual birth, (the
only outside interest being the timing of the contractions,
the state of her vagina, and of course how much noise she
was making). Even at the moment of the birth they were
aggressively telling her to push harder to surface the
baby’s head and shoulders. When she groaned, they
scolded her, telling her that all the strength was in her
throat and that was not where it counted! When the baby
was finally born, out came a rush of blood and baby and
a little girl was born. One minute you could see the head
of the child inside and the next, it was born! It was a
fascinating experience, both the biological wonder of being
present at the birth, and the cultural difference in regards
to the attitude toward pain and suffering and childbirth
itself. There certainly was not much romance involved at
that end of the process!
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