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Resources Textbook Chapters Asian Mothers, Western Birth When I Had My Baby Here!
Resources Textbook Chapters Asian Mothers, Western Birth When I Had My Baby Here!
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When I Had My Baby Here! |
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Chapter 8: When I had my Baby Here! Overview I put a necklace on my baby's neck and when a midwife from the hospital came to visit me she saw it and said: "Don't do this because it may choke your baby." How could it choke the baby? We Hmong people have been doing this for thousands and thousands of years and no baby has died from being choked by a silver necklace.
The quote given above shows different cultural beliefs and practices among health care providers and women from a non-Western cultural background. In this case, there is little doubt that the carer had good intentions in protecting the infant. However, putting a necklace around the infant's neck is a means of protecting the infant from ill health and harmful agents in the Hmong culture. The carer would have been more understanding and could have handled the matter better if she had been knowledgeable about different cultural beliefs and practices among the Hmong women. Confusions and conflicts, therefore, could have been avoided. In this chapter the experiences of several Hmong and Vietnamese women who had their babies in Australian maternity hospitals are examined. The chapter is divided into three main areas: Pregnancy, Birth, and Confinement. In each of these three areas important issues which are the main concerns and worries among Hmong and Vietnamese women will be presented. However, these important issues will be presented within the following themes:
Pranee was born in a small Malay town in the south of Thailand. She received her undergraduate and master's degrees from a Thai university. Pranee came to Australia to undertake her doctoral degree at Monash University in 1982. She has two daughters. Pranee is Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Australia. Previously she taught in the La Trobe School of Sociology and Anthropology. Her particular interests are in issues related to cultural and social influences on childbearing, childrearing and women's reproductive health. She has published several books and papers in these areas. Three of her books have been used widely in the health area: My 40 Days: A Crosscultural Resource Book for Health Care Professionals in Birthing Services (1993); Asian Mothers, Australian Birth (editor, 1994); and Maternity and Reproductive Health in Asian Societies (editor, with Lenore Manderson, 1996). Her most recent books are Qualitative Research Methods: A Health Focus (with Douglas Ezzy, in press) and Living in a New Country: Understanding Migrants' Health (editor, in press). |
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