The Stories that No Mom Forgets

Birth stories are the great remnants of the art of story-telling. Story -telling as a means of entertainment and preserving tradition have given way to a multitude of more technologically advanced entertainment media. Just ask anyone if they would rather hear a good story or watch Prime Time TV and chances are the story would not get told. The great exception to this development is the magic that comes over the face of any parent, or even a grandparent, who has experienced the birth of a child, and you can't keep the story in the box. We are actually assigned to tell our birth story, as we have one. What an invitation!
I have three children and three grandchildren, and except for the youngest two grandbabies, I was there and a full participant in the exciting, painful, messy, noisy, foreign, funny, and not-so-funny events. My oldest was born at New York University hospital. My obstetrician was a close-to-retirement doctor for upper income women. I was NOT one of those women, but ended up in her office with a very good medical insurance plan offered by my employer. She was Hungarian, with a thick accent, and a lab coat thrown over her glam dress, jewelry and stiletto shoes, and she called everyone "Daahh-linck". If you remember Dr. Ruth, they could have been sisters. Everyone loved her, and so did I. She was also full of motherly advice and the wisdom that is freely given by people who no longer worry about being offensive if truth be told. The ride to the hospital when I went into labor on a Sunday morning was material worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit; a non-English-speaking taxi driver plowing frantically through NYC traffic with a very-loudly-in-labor fare in the back seat. I made it in PLENTY of time. The hospital staff was marvelous, professional, and kindly answered all of my questions about the process and the machinery used. (They all loved my doctor too, and treated her patients with special care.) "Dr. Ruth" delivered my daughter with few complications, and when the messy gloves and scrubs came off, she looked dressed for a night at the opera. Everyone was happy and glowing, including my beautiful baby girl. At almost every birthday and at baby showers for new moms, this story gets told (maybe with a few different details added here and there, as such is the story-telling tradition.).
I do not know how the stories sound in Kenya, where my church sponsors one of our clergy and his family of six. Recent articles report that Kenya has one of the highest maternal death rates in the world. Most women use a traditional birth attendant (TBA) that may be untrained and/or uncertified, but very often known to mothers. Emergency transport is less available, crime makes night-time trips dangerous in poverty-stricken slums, and the cost of maternity related medical services is much more than the majority of women can pay. A demographic health survey indicated that 57% of women give birth at home, and only 28% assisted by the TBA. (Anyangu-Amu, July 26, 2010.).  The danger of emergency travel is not limited to those who live in slums. The general infrastructure of passable roads and public services, such as ambulance and hospitals or clinics available within a close range of the population, make these services unavailable to even those who may have the money to pay. Electricity and the utilities that are readily available in the United States, so much so that we are panicked when the lights go out, are simply not available 24/7 or reliable in many areas of the world. Medicines are not always on hand. The issues of maternal health are issues of national infrastructure, not necessarily of  tradition, personal choice, income, abilities, or desire to have healthy, happy babies. In many cases, they are not even about poverty, but are about poor national leadership and distribution of national resources and aide haphazardly or irresponsibly. Beyond the birthing conditions that are reported upon in Kenya, I am willing to bet that the "When you were born..." stories retold by mothers to their children are not too much different in family lore than they are anywhere else in the world. I will be in touch with our missionary family there, when they are able, and perhaps they can fill me in on some Kenyan childhood insights.

Resources:
Anyangu-Amu, Susan.(2010, July26) Kenya: Jury Still Out on Traditional Birth Attendants. Retrieved from http://ipsnews.net

Kenya-maternity medical centers in Nairobi are death traps. (August 31, 2010)  Retrieved from http://urbanhealthupdates.wordpress.com