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Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many countries, midwifery is a medical profession. A professional in midwifery is known as a midwife.
Obstetrics is the field of study concentrated on pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. As a medical specialty, obstetrics is combined with gynecology under the discipline known as obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), which is a surgical field.
Childbirth, also known as labour and delivery, is the completion of pregnancy where one or more babies exits the internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section. In 2019, there were about 140.11 million births globally. In the developed countries, most deliveries occur in hospitals, while in the developing countries most are home births.
Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined in slightly different ways by several different health organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal death as the death of a pregnant mother due to complications related to pregnancy, underlying conditions worsened by the pregnancy or management of these conditions. This can occur either while they are pregnant or within six weeks of resolution of the pregnancy. The CDC definition of pregnancy-related deaths extends the period of consideration to include one year from the resolution of the pregnancy. Pregnancy associated death, as defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), are all deaths occurring within one year of a pregnancy resolution. Identification of pregnancy associated deaths is important for deciding whether or not the pregnancy was a direct or indirect contributing cause of the death.
A home birth is a birth that takes place in a residence rather than in a hospital or a birthing center. They may be attended by a midwife, or lay attendant with experience in managing home births. Home birth was, until the advent of modern medicine, the de facto method of delivery. The term was coined in the middle of the 19th century as births began to take place in hospitals.
In obstetrics, gestational age is a measure of the age of a pregnancy taken from the beginning of the woman's last menstrual period (LMP), or the corresponding age of the gestation as estimated by a more accurate method if available. Such methods include adding 14 days to a known duration since fertilization, or by obstetric ultrasonography. The popularity of using this measure of pregnancy is due to the fact that menstrual periods are usually noticed, while there is generally no convenient way to discern when fertilization or implantation occurred. Gestational age is contrasted with fertilization age which takes the date of fertilization as the start date of gestation, and pregnancy which begins with implantation.
Obstructed labour, also known as labour dystocia, is the baby not exiting the pelvis because it is physically blocked during childbirth although the uterus contracts normally. Complications for the baby include not getting enough oxygen which may result in death. It increases the risk of the mother getting an infection, having uterine rupture, or having post-partum bleeding. Long-term complications for the mother include obstetrical fistula. Obstructed labour is said to result in prolonged labour, when the active phase of labour is longer than 12 hours.
The obstetrical dilemma is a hypothesis to explain why humans often require assistance from other humans during childbirth to avoid complications, whereas most non-human primates give birth unassisted with relatively little difficulty. This occurs due to the tight fit of the fetal head to the maternal birth canal, which is additionally convoluted, meaning the head and therefore body of the infant must rotate during childbirth in order to fit, unlike in other, non-upright walking mammals. Consequently, there is a usually high incidence of cephalopelvic disproportion and obstructed labor in humans.
A traditional birth attendant (TBA), also known as a traditional midwife, community midwife or lay midwife, is a pregnancy and childbirth care provider. Traditional birth attendants provide the majority of primary maternity care in many developing countries, and may function within specific communities in developed countries.
A birth attendant, also known as skilled birth attendant, is a health professional who provides basic and emergency care to women and their newborns during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. A birth attendant, who may be a midwife, physician, obstetrician, or nurse, is trained to be present at ("attend") childbirth, whether the delivery takes place in a health care institution or at home, to recognize and respond appropriately to medical complications, and to implement interventions to help prevent them in the first place, including through prenatal care. Different birth attendants are able to provide different levels of care.
Obstetrical forceps are a medical instrument used in childbirth. Their use can serve as an alternative to the ventouse method.
A postpartum disorder or puerperal disorder is a disease or condition which presents primarily during the days and weeks after childbirth called the postpartum period. The postpartum period can be divided into three distinct stages: the initial or acute phase, 6–12 hours after childbirth; subacute postpartum period, which lasts two to six weeks, and the delayed postpartum period, which can last up to six months. In the subacute postpartum period, 87% to 94% of women report at least one health problem. Long term health problems are reported by 31% of women.
Childbirth in rural Appalachia has long been a subject of concern amongst the population because infant mortality rates are higher in Appalachia than in other parts of the United States. Additionally, poor health in utero, at birth, and in childhood can contribute to poor health throughout life. The region's low income, geographic isolation, and low levels of educational attainment reduce both access to and utilization of modern medical care. Traditional medical practices, including lay midwifery, persisted longer in Appalachia than in other U.S. regions.
Like many developing countries, Uganda has high maternal mortality ratio at 343 per 100,000 live births. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes. In situations where attribution of the cause of death is inadequate, another definition, pregnancy-related death was coined by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), defined as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the cause of death.
Obstetric medicine, similar to maternal medicine, is a sub-specialty of general internal medicine and obstetrics that specializes in process of prevention, diagnosing, and treating medical disorders in with pregnant women. It is closely related to the specialty of maternal-fetal medicine, although obstetric medicine does not directly care for the fetus. The practice of obstetric medicine, or previously known as "obstetric intervention," primarily consisted of the extraction of the baby during instances of duress, such as obstructed labor or if the baby was positioned in breech.
A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery.
This article provides a background on Nepal as a whole, with a focus on the nation's childbearing and birthing practices. While modern Western medicine has disseminated across the country to varying degrees, different regions in Nepal continue to practice obstetric and newborn care according to traditional beliefs, attitudes, and customs.
In its early history, Mexico was occupied by a large number of indigenous tribes such as the Mayans and Aztecs. In the 16th century, Spain colonized New Spain and took over the land from the indigenous peoples. Though it is now an independent nation, Mexico retains much of the cultural influence of Spain, including its official religion of Catholicism, the Spanish language, and the importance of machismo - the belief that men are superior to women. Mexico also retains much of the traditional beliefs of the indigenous peoples who first occupied the country. Besides Spanish, there are over one hundred different languages spoken in the country today. As a result, the current medical system involves a mix of traditional and Western medicinal techniques.
The maternal mortality rate is 224 deaths per 100,000 births, which is the 23rd highest in the world. The mean age of mothers at birth is 19.3 years old, and the fertility rate is 5.72 children born per woman, which is the 7th highest in the world. The contraceptive rate is only 40.8%, and the birth rate is the 4th highest in the world at 42.13 births/1,000 population. Infectious disease is a key contributor to the poor health of the nation, and the risk is very high for diseases such as protozoal and bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, dengue fever, schistosomiasis, and rabies. The adult prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS is 12.37%, which is the 7th highest in the world.
Abuse during childbirth is generally defined as interactions or conditions deemed humiliating or undignified by local consensus and interactions or conditions experienced as or intended to be humiliating or undignifying. Bowser and Hill's 2010 landscape analysis defined seven categories of abusive or disrespectful care, including physical abuse, non-consented clinical care, non-confidential care, non-dignified care, discrimination, abandonment, and detention in health facilities.
References
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- ↑ Emery, Carla (2019). The encyclopedia of country living (50th anniversary ed.). Seattle. ISBN 978-1-63217-289-1. OCLC 1097577213.
- 1 2 "Unexpected births in cars and bathrooms: Why some babies are born before arrival at hospital - ABC News". amp.abc.net.au. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
- ↑ Konner, Melvin; Shostak, Marjorie (1987). "Timing and Management of Birth among the !Kung: Biocultural Interaction in Reproductive Adaptation". Cultural Anthropology. 2 (1): 11–28. doi:10.1525/can.1987.2.1.02a00030. ISSN 0886-7356. JSTOR 656392.
- ↑ OLENJA, J.M.; KIMANI, V.N. (1998). "The Role of Men in Birthing and Postpartum Care". Cambridge Anthropology. 20 (1/2): 136–145. ISSN 0305-7674. JSTOR 23820314.
- ↑ Miller, Janneli F. (2018), Schwartz, David A. (ed.), "Misconceived Mortality: Solitary Birth and Maternal Mortality Among the Rarámuri of Northern Mexico", Maternal Death and Pregnancy-Related Morbidity Among Indigenous Women of Mexico and Central America, Global Maternal and Child Health, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 349–368, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71538-4_18, ISBN 978-3-319-71537-7 , retrieved 2023-04-15
- ↑ Chopel, Alison M. (2014-05-04). "Reproductive health in indigenous Chihuahua: giving birth 'alone like the goat'". Ethnicity & Health. 19 (3): 270–296. doi:10.1080/13557858.2013.771150. ISSN 1355-7858. PMID 23444879. S2CID 45383831.
- ↑ Evolution and Childbirth: An Evaluation of Obstetrical Practices from an Evolutionary Perspective Caitlin Garland (Department of Anthropology, University of Florida), https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/06/02/70/00001/caitlinegarland-Thesis-finaldraft.pdf
- ↑ Demuru, Elisa; Ferrari, Pier Francesco; Palagi, Elisabetta (September 2018). "Is birth attendance a uniquely human feature? New evidence suggests that Bonobo females protect and support the parturient". Evolution and Human Behavior. 39 (5): 502–510. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.05.003. S2CID 149489276.