by Ms. V. (South Korea) | Oct 29, 2012 | Birthing, Education, Eye on Culture, Living Abroad, Maternal Health, Motherhood, South Korea, Technology, Women's Rights, World Motherhood
I was 32-weeks pregnant with my son when we moved to Seoul from Seattle. When my spouse first got this assignment my knowledge of Korea was admittedly narrow, but because of all the research I had been doing on pregnancy and childbirth, the one bit of information that I did know was that Korea had an even higher rate of C-Section than the United States. The rate of c-section in the US is a staggering 30%, while here in South Korea it is an even more staggering 37.7%.
One of the things that is surprising about this number is that, in a study conducted in 2000, when polled, the majority of pregnant South Korean women said they prefer vaginal delivery. The study was done when the c-section rate was nearing 40% and researchers wanted to know if this rise had to do with women’s desires and attitudes towards childbirth. The study concluded that the rapid rise in C-section rates was related to health care practitioners and the health care system, not women’s attitudes or desires.
So, what’s happening? In a country that has skyrocketed to first world status in 50 short years, why aren’t women getting the medical care they desire?
Confucian ideals and principles lie at the heart of this rapidly modernizing society. They are the subtext to every interaction. The main principles of Confucianism can be very broadly summarized as:
- Follow the Golden Rule
- Be loyal to your family
- Respect your elders and superiors
- Worship your ancestors
- Know your role in society and fulfill it to the best of your ability
While I do not disagree in theory with all of these principles, their effects on this society have led to an inequity among men and women that, I believe, leads to difficult circumstances for women when it comes to birthing. Being loyal to family and respecting elders and superiors means being, if no longer submissive, at least deferential not only to the men in their lives but to anyone whose position in society is “higher” than theirs.
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Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states.
Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.
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by Maman Aya (USA) | Oct 19, 2012 | Babies, Birthing, Breastfeeding, Family, Grandparent, Husband, Kids, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
This Saturday Sidebar Question had me thinking about and reliving my birthing experiences.
When my son was born, I had been having contractions for several months. I knew they were Braxton Hicks, but they were so regular for so long, even my doctor was concerned. I had a scheduled date for my c-section (I have a bad back, so was told from the onset that I would have to have a Caesarian), but my son didn’t want to have anything to do with my schedule – much like he has been ever since that amazing November day. So about a week before we were scheduled to go in, my contractions increased, while I was working at home, and on the phone with a client. I remember telling her “ask me whatever else you need to know about, since I am going into labor now and you won’t be talking to me for the next 3 months”. 🙂 (more…)
Maman Aya is a full-time working mother of 2 beautiful children, a son who is 6 and a daughter who is two. She is raising her children in the high-pressure city of New York within a bilingual and multi-religious home.
Aya was born in Canada to a French mother who then swiftly whisked her away to NYC, where she grew up and spent most of her life. She was raised following Jewish traditions and married an Irish Catholic American who doesn’t speak any other language (which did not go over too well with her mother), but who is learning French through his children. Aya enjoys her job but feels “mommy guilt” while at work. She is lucky to have the flexibility to work from home on Thursdays and recently decided to change her schedule to have “mommy Fridays”, but still feels torn about her time away from her babies. Maman Aya is not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but has been drawn in by the mothers who write for World Moms Blog. She looks forward to joining the team and trying her hand at writing!
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by Elizabeth Atalay | Oct 2, 2012 | 2012, Birthing, Health, Humanity, Maternal Health, Media, Social Good, Womanhood, Women's Rights, World Events, World Moms Blog, World Voice
Photo Credit: The Fistula foundation
“One Woman at a time. That is how we fight fistula. By restoring health and dignity to one. One woman with the will to survive. She is still waiting.” -The Fistula Foundation
Take time to learn one woman’s story
Once we have given birth to our first child we join a sisterhood of mothers. We can relate to each other in a way that only someone who has experienced the bodily changes of pregnancy and birth can. As beautiful and miraculous of a process pregnancy can be, our bodies have transformed in ways that introduce humility as only gestation can.
As mothers we seem to be able to speak about personal things we would never speak of to anyone else. Breastfeeding, leaking milk, hernias, incontinence, episiotomy, my fellow mothers, we have all been there in some way. We understand. Personally, I shared my experiences with other mothers along the way through my four pregnancies and births, and one miscarriage in between.
Obstetric Fistula is not a pleasant topic, and not one that we as mothers talk to each other about, but it is a mother’s topic, and because as mothers we are sisters, we need to talk about it. (more…)
Elizabeth Atalay is a Digital Media Producer, Managing Editor at World Moms Network, and a Social Media Manager. She was a 2015 United Nations Foundation Social Good Fellow, and traveled to Ethiopia as an International Reporting Project New Media Fellow to report on newborn health in 2014. On her personal blog, Documama.org, she uses digital media as a new medium for her background as a documentarian. After having worked on Feature Films and Television series for FOX, NBC, MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock Pictures, she studied documentary filmmaking and anthropology earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York. Since becoming a Digital Media Producer she has worked on social media campaigns for non-profits such as Save The Children, WaterAid, ONE.org, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, Edesia, World Pulse, American Heart Association, and The Gates Foundation. Her writing has also been featured on ONE.org, Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com, EnoughProject.org, GaviAlliance.org, and Worldmomsnetwork.com. Elizabeth has traveled to 70 countries around the world, most recently to Haiti with Artisan Business Network to visit artisans in partnership with Macy’s Heart of Haiti line, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans. Elizabeth lives in New England with her husband and four children.
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by World Moms Blog | Sep 22, 2012 | Birthing, Saturday Sidebar, World Moms Blog
This week’s Saturday Sidebar Question comes from World Moms Blog writer Purnima. She asked our writers and readers:
“How did you feel when you held your baby for the first time? Share with us your birth story.”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Mama Mzungu from Kenya with her baby
MamaMzunga of Kenya writes: “My first emotion when I saw my second son for the first time was “it’s about time!!” We had our second child in Nairobi in a modern hospital. It was fully equipped for an emergency and the doctors were a bit more used to working with foreigners, which clinched our decision to have him in the capital city instead of where we were living in Western Kenya. But the experience was very much like how birthing must have been in the US 40 years ago. My husband was not allowed in the room with me and in fact I saw very few men in the labor ward at all. Laboring women were literally leaning on one another for support in a kind of sisterhood that I almost envied. I ended up with a c-section, and by the time I was fully lucid, I was back in the room with my husband waiting anxiously for someone to bring the baby. We waited. And waited. And waited. FOUR excruciating hours later we got to hold him. He cooed sweetly, breast fed like a champ and seemed oblivious to all our pre-existing panic, which washed away as soon as we saw his beautiful little face. You can read more about this only funny in retrospect experience here.”
Alison Lee of Malaysia writes:
“I blogged the birth story of my second son here.”
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World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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by World Moms Blog | Sep 18, 2012 | Birthing, Maternal Health, Social Good, World Voice
One-year-old Nadya at a temple in Thailand.
In 2009, I moved with my husband, one-year-old daughter and four-year-old son to work with trauma survivors at the Mae Tao clinic on the Thai-Burma border. While there, and at Angor Children’s Hospital in Cambodia, I learned that midwifery care was non-existent. Wanting to find ways to support pregnant mothers, I trained as a doula and, later, as a Lamaze childbirth educator.
In 2011, I traveled to a ground-breaking, private birthing center in Uganda (Shanti Uganda) to try out my new doula skills. In addition to working at the Shanti Uganda Birthing Center, I volunteered at the local hospital. What a life-changer!
There was a shocking lack of sterile supplies for birthing, for example one woman gave birth on the dress she wore to the hospital. I later learned that in addition to lack of supplies being unpleasant for the mother, it was unhygienic and could cause infection.
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World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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by World Moms Blog | Sep 14, 2012 | Culture, Death and Dying, Guest Post, Health, Loss of Child, Maternal Health, Miscarriage, Motherhood, Pregnancy, USA, Womanhood, World Motherhood, Writing
I’m not going to apologize for being sad.
I have been thinking a lot lately about how it has been two weeks, 15 days to be exact, since my miscarriage (well, finding out about it anyway). And how although I have so many friends who have been supportive and such, I sense that the general feeling in our culture, when death happens, or a loss occurs, is to “get over it”.
Scattered throughout my days I hear these messages whispered in my ear..
move on
occupy your time
stay busy
you will get over this
I suppose in some ways I’m telling myself those things. I know people mean well. It’s just in our culture to stick a band-aid on things that are wounded and keep on going.
But you know what? I don’t want to get over it. Not right now. Nope. I’m sitting down right here on the ground and crossing my legs in the sand. I don’t care if it has been two weeks, or six… or two years or a decade. Maybe never. (more…)
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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