Childbirth Around the World

As soon as I saw the preview for Babies, a movie depicting the life of four newborns around the world, I was hooked! It is documentary of the life of four babies. The babies are from San Francisco, Nambia, Tokyo, and Mongolian Steppe. Each a vastly different region with vastly different prenatal care, birthing, and postnatal approaches to raising children. There is a wonderful review by Psychology Today here. I, myself, have no children and have never seen a live birth. Frankly, I don't know that children are in my future. However, I admire the birthing process and if I ever decided to do it would probably take the natural route. I believe in the use of midwives and processes such as water births. I would want to have my baby at home or in a relaxing environment, not in a cold hospital. I did experience my nephews birth. He was a 3lb.12oz. premature baby. He was not planned and his mother did not have wonderful prenatal care. In fact I don't remember there being that much prenatal care at all. My nephew was born premature and needed to be incubated. He was so tiny, being wheeled through his family members to the NICU.

I researched the birthing process in France as a comparison to the United States. I assumed that it would be slightly more European with the use of a midwife and more common at home births. I was wrong. The research did mention the use of midwives, but the rest of the process was far more sterile. The mention of multiple pieces of paperwork was necessary for prenatal care. There is the use of a "maternity record book" that must be present at all prenatal doctors visits and should be kept as a record of appropriate prenatal care. These records must be presented to a medical examiner. There is employment protection and job assurance. Home births are not common in France. The whole process seems very sterile and not maternal in any way. To register the infants name you must take the birth certificate to the French nationality authorities who will then register your child as a French citizen.