ose practices.
In comparing the four cultures--the United States, Holland, Sweden and Maya Indians in Yucatan, Mexico--Jordan outlines several important differences in approach to birth and delivery.
In the United States, 95 percent or all babies are born in hospitals, where the birth is viewed as a medical event and the woman is seen as a patient requiring care.
Decision-making power and responsibility for her state pass from her to hospital personnel and the physician in charge. "A typical birth can be characterized as physician attended and professionally managed with an orientation towards medical technology and pharmacological methods of pain relief."
In Sweden, the birth event is viewed as the woman's achievement and responsibility. All births take place in hospitals and are managed by highly trained midwives. Sedatives, medication for pain relief, induction and artificial stimulation or labor is used, with the awareness and consent of the mother.
In Holland, the overwhelming majority of women expect and get no medication of any kind, since the Dutch view childbirth as a natural event, and birth participants hold a deep-seated conviction that the woman's body knows best and that, given enough time, nature will take its course. About 55 percent of births are home births, and delivery by a midwife is common at home as well as in the hospital. In both Sweden and Holland, systematic prenatal care is available for every woman (Abortion on demand is equally available.) Both countries have some of the lowest infant mortality figures in the world.
In the Yucatan, Maya women deliver at home, accompanied by a midwife, the mother's husband and several other women attendants who have given birth to babies of their own. The birth area generally is separated from the rest of the household by a blanket strung across the room, but sounds of normal daily activity can be readily heard. Maya women expect some pain at b...