Midwives and mothers : the medicalization of childbirth on a Guatemalan plantation / Sheila Cosminsky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cosminsky, Sheila, author.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Louann Atkins Temple women & culture series ; bk. 43.

Louann Atkins Temple women & culture series ; book forty-three

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Midwives--Guatemala--Social conditions.

Midwives.

Traditional medicine--Guatemala.

Traditional medicine.

Childbirth--Social aspects--Guatemala.

Childbirth.

Maternal health services--Social aspects--Guatemala.

Maternal health services.

Plantation life--Health aspects--Guatemala.

Plantation life.

Rural development--Health aspects--Guatemala.

Rural development.

Maternal Health Services.

Maternal health services--Social aspects.

Childbirth--Social aspects.

Social conditions.

Guatemala.

Medical Subjects:

Maternal Health Services.

Guatemala.

Physical Description:

xii, 303 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2016.

Summary:

The World Health Organization is currently promoting a policy of replacing traditional, or lay midwives in countries around the world. As part of an effort to record the knowledge of local midwives before it is lost, Midwives and Mothers explores birth, illness, death, and survival on a Guatemalan sugar and coffee plantation, or finca, through the stories of the lives of two local midwives, Doña Maria and her daughter Doha Siriaca, and the women they have served over a forty-year period. By comparing the practices and beliefs of the mother and daughter, Sheila Cosminsky shows the dynamics of the medicalization process and the contestation between the midwives and biomedical personnel, as the latter try to impose their system as the authoritative one. She discusses how the midwives syncretize, integrate, or reject elements from Mayan, Spanish, and biomedical systems. The midwives' story becomes a lens for understanding the impact of medicalization on people's lives and the ways in which women's bodies have become contested terrain between traditional and contemporary medical practices. Cosminsky also makes recommendations for how ethno-obstetric and biomedical systems may be accommodated, articulated, or integrated. Finally, she places the changes in the birthing system in the larger context of changes in the plantation system, including the elimination of coffee growing, which has made women, traditionally the primary harvesters of coffee-beans, more economically dependent on men. Book jacket.

Contents:

Midwives, knowledge, and power at birth

María's world : the plantation

The role of the midwife : María and Siriaca

Hands and intuition : the midwife's prenatal care

Soften the pain : management of labor and delivery

Looking after mother and infant : postpartum care

To heal and to hold : midwife as healer and doctor to the family

Career or calling : national health policies and midwifery training programs

Medicalization through the lens of childbirth

Appendix I. Medicinal plants and remedies mentioned by midwives

Appendix II. common and scientific names of medicinal plants.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-288) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781477311394

9781477311387

1477311386

1477311394

OCLC:

945745615

Publisher Number:

99969859729