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.

Sneak Peak for This Weeks Post

http://www.focusfeatures.com/video/babies_the_trailer

Code of Ethics

There are two areas of the Division of Early Childhood Code of Ethics that really stood out to me. The first being 1. 6. We shall build relationships with individual children and families while individualizing the curricula and learning environments to facilitate young children's development and learning. I whole downheartedly agree that as early educators we must get to know our students on such a cognitive level that we can develop the most appropriate learning environment possible. Each student should have an individual education plan. I know most teachers would not agree with me and tell me that IEP's are not necessary for each child and it would take far too much time to conduct an IEP on each child. I'm sorry but I believe that such young students have different learning styles and modalities that need to be addressed. The next item I found interesting on the DEC's Code of Ethics was 3. 1. We shall demonstrate our respect and concern for children, families, colleagues, and others with whom we work, honoring their beliefs, values, customs, languages, and culture. During early childhood education students often realize they are different. They eat different foods at home, speak different languages, and ofter worship different gods. However, as early childhood educators we must develop as sense of trust and understanding between such young students. Teaching children about other cultures is a start but we almost patronize the culture by throwing a Cinco De Mayo party or throwing the Star of David up on the wall without explaining it during the holiday seasons. We need to rethink of cultural education. In short, those were two items I found inspirational and interesting in the DEC Code of Ethics.

Additional Resources

http://www.fldoe.org/earlyLearning/

http://www.floridasmart.com/education/orginfo_child.htm

http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/eecearchive/digests/2000/goffin00.html

Early Childhood Education Resources

• NAEYC. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/dap
• NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on child abuse prevention. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/ChildAbuseStand.pdf
• NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on school readiness. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/Readiness.pdf
• NAEYC. (2009). Where we stand on responding to linguistic and cultural diversity. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/diversity.pdf
• NAEYC. (2003). Early childhood curriculum, assessment, and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/pscape.pdf
• NAEYC. (2009, April). Early childhood inclusion: A summary. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/DEC_NAEYC_ECSummary_A.pdf
• Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. (2010). Infant-toddler policy agenda. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ter_pub_infanttodller
• FPG Child Development Institute. (2006, September). Evidence-based practice empowers early childhood professionals and families. (FPG Snapshot, No. 33). Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~snapshots/snap33.pdf
• Turnbull, A., Zuna, N., Hong, J. Y., Hu, X., Kyzar, K., Obremski, S., et al. (2010). Knowledge-to-action guides. Teaching Exceptional Children, 42(3), 42–53.
Use the Academic Search Complete database, and search using the article's title.
• Article: UNICEF (n.d.). Fact sheet: A summary of the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved May 26, 2010, from http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf
• Websites:
o World Forum Foundation
http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/about.php
This link connects you to the mission statement of this organization. Make sure to watch the video on this webpage
o World Organization for Early Childhood Education
http://www.omep-usnc.org/
Read about OMEP’s mission.
o Association for Childhood Education International
http://acei.org/about/
Click on “Mission/Vision” and “Guiding Principles and Beliefs” and read these statements.
• National Association for the Education of Young Children
http://www.naeyc.org/
• The Division for Early Childhood
http://www.dec-sped.org/
• Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families
http://www.zerotothree.org/
• WESTED
http://www.wested.org/cs/we/print/docs/we/home.htm
• Harvard Education Letter
http://www.hepg.org/hel/topic/85
• FPG Child Development Institute
http://www.fpg.unc.edu/main/about.cfm
• Administration for Children and Families Headstart’s National Research Conference
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hsrc/
• HighScope
http://www.highscope.org/
• Children’s Defense Fund
http://www.childrensdefense.org/
• Center for Child Care Workforce
http://www.ccw.org/
• Council for Exceptional Children
http://www.cec.sped.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
• Institute for Women’s Policy Research
http://www.iwpr.org/index.cfm
• National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education
http://www.ncrece.org/wordpress/
• National Child Care Association
http://www.nccanet.org/
• National Institute for Early Education Research
http://nieer.org/
• Pre[K]Now
http://www.preknow.org/
• Voices for America’s Children
http://www.voices.org/
• The Erikson Institute
http://www.erikson.edu/