A personal birthing experience that I wish to write about is that of my first daughter. It was in 1981 and I was admitted to the hospital a week before her due date of August 6,1981.This was because I had developed pregnancy induced hypertension which later resulted in full-blown hypertension after my second daughter was born. I was closely monitored by my obstetrician. I was nervously excited about this event because of two reasons. The first reason is that it was my first pregnancy and the second reason is that I had come in contact with the rubella virus during the fifteenth week of pregnancy. I did not know what my baby would look like and during that time I was not exposed to a sonogram. I never wanted anything to happen to my baby so I never stopped crying during my entire pregnancy and I think that the anxiety of not knowing what to expect might have added to my stress level and the baby's stress level.
My daughter was delivered,Thursday, July 30,1981 at approximately 10:00 a.m with the umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck. I was both afraid and numbed as she would not cry. Her delivering nurse turned her upside down and she gave that faint cry that brought a sigh of relief to the nurse. I started questioning the nurse about her physical features. She could not understand why I was asking so many questions until I related to her my haunting fears of the rubella virus that I came in contact with at the school where I was teaching at the time. She then brought in the doctor that was on duty to examine the baby. The doctor then allayed my fears by telling me that I "had a perfectly normal baby."
I was truly concerned about whether or not my daughter would have been affected by the rubella virus.I truly thanked God she was not because I know that the virus could have seriously affected her developmental process especially her brain.
As I researched about the birthing experience in Turkey, I realized that many pregnant women have fears too. However,their fears are related to labor pains,birth related problems,procedures, attitudes to health care personnel and sexuality. The reasons for their fears included the type and quality of childbirth information,personal characteristics and experiences, maternity ward environment and a lack of confidence in health care professionals. It seems as if there is a lack of formal education on child development and childbirth which are the main things that are highly recommended to be put in place.This is according to: Midwifery 2009 April,2005(2) 155-62.Epub 2007 Jun 27.
When women give birth around the world every country does things differently, but mothers still should be educated on child development and what is to come. I wish we had ways of educating those countries better, so their child birthing epxeriences would be better and everyone would be safer. Good post and very informative.
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