Birth, Culture, Brazil

Privade Hospitals X Public Hospitals

Brazil is a country divided by social and economical disparity. It is also one of the world champions of cesarean rates, maintaing a national rate of around 40% c-section. That´s bad but not that bad, one might think, many other countries are showing similarly high rates. Then we see what the numbers really say.

Women who give birth in Public, government-funded, hospitals face a 37% c-section rate.

Women who give birth in Private, either by private insurance or out-of-pocket payment, face an 80% c-section rate.


In my personal experience through researching birth practices throughout the country I have heard of many hospitals with 99% c-section rates. People ask me how that´s possible, the answer is simple:

Women have scheduled cesareans before they ever get a chance to go into labor and possibly have a vaginal birth.

This happens usually around 38 weeks, which has been linked to the rise in prematurity, since some babies may not be "ready" to be born at the time of the c-section. It is also common for women to be told by their ob/gyn to chose the date for their c-section during their 1st pre-natal visit based solely on their due date.

These women are in large part not educated on the risks versus benefits involved with choosing a scheduled c-section before the onset of labor. And this is has become a matter of public health since it not only effects their own births but the whole ,aternity health care system. With c-sections are the norm hospital staff does not come in contact with normal childbirth on a daily bases.

Steps to Humanize Birth

From the article "Fish Can´t See Water: The Need to Humanize Birth" by Marsden Wagner

1: Education is Power. Offer quality childbirth education for women.
2: Promote evidence based maternity care practices.
3: Informed choice in primary care giver for women. Advocate for Midwives as well as Doctors.
4: Alternative birth place options such as birth centers and homebirth.
5: Integrate out-of-hospital and in-hospital birth care and practitioners.
6: Evolve new social and political forms for the medical profession and care.
7: Respect and work with nature and with the woman and family (Woman-Family-Centered Care).
8: Turn control of care over to the people (Birth as Women´s and Human Rights)

Dallas Girl and Boy from Beagá

Here They Are!

Ananda and Nathan

My Most Wonderful and Lovely Children

a.k.a Dallas Girl and Boy from Beagá

They are all dressed up for Festa Junina [June Party], a tradicional party celebrated in the month of June, thus the name. Also known as Festa de São João [Saint John´s Party], Brazilian culture is still highly influenced by the Catholic Church even though this is not a religious celebration. There is no culture of separation of church and state in Brazil, so spirituality is inter-woven into daily life. The party includes special yummy foods, kids and adults dress-up like country folk [see pic above] and do line-dancing.

I just want to make it clear that they don´t dress like this everyday. He really is that silly and she really is that sweet.

My personal experience with the Baby Name Game worked out wonderfully. I love the names we chose for the kids and they do too, all is well. I had a huge list of possible baby names both times. We did not find out baby´s sex during pregnancy. We thought that it would be an added extra bonus to see on baby´s actual birth day if we´d been blessed with a girl or a boy. So both pregnancies were gender-neutral and I loved it. It felt great to just be able to love baby without knowing if it was a boy or girl.

With Ananda I just knew that was her name as soon as I heard it during my pregnancy. Mother´s intuition is to be trusted. She still gets the usual question, Amanda? Now she´s perfectly comfortable with clearing it up. "Not Amanda, Ananda." I have to admit it got alot easier after the Amazing Ananda doll came out.

With Nathan, I had to see his face to choose a name, so I called him "rapaz" [guy] for the first 20-some days of his life. His birth was so fantastic but post-partum adjustment was what you could call PUNK. [more on that later, this post is about baby naming] I had to trust my intuition and respect my own time to integrate the experience. It´s perfectly okay to wait days to choose a name, if you need the time.

In choosing my kid´s names it was important to me that they have less popular names with deep spiritual meaning. Oh, and the names had to also be easy to read/write/say in both Portuguese and English.

Ananda is from Sânscrit meaning Bliss.

Nathan is from Hebrew meaning Gift from God.

And they are.

Baby blessings,

Alex

p.s. Alessandra, Alexandra and other variants of Alexander origined from Alexander the Great and means Protector of Humankind.