The Manner Born: Birth Rites in Cross-Cultural Perspective

by Lauren Dundes (Editor), Niles Newton (Contributor), Michael Newton (Contributor)

This essential collection on maternal and child health focuses on the rites of giving birth from a cross-cultural perspective. The distinguished list of contributors describe the many customs surrounding birth through infancy, highlighting a wide range of variation in practices across cultures. They discuss attitudes and techniques in childbirth, the interaction between human evolutionary form and birthing procedures, the influence of societal factors that differentiate Western from non-Western maternal birthing positions, and the art of midwifery. Also treated are less well-known areas of birthing such as the imagery of birthing, placenta rituals, and popular beliefs about the amniotic membrane called a caul. In addition, the authors explore the humoral medical tradition used in birthing, the possible influence of cultural practices on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), customs and beliefs regarding breastfeeding, weaning, swaddling, and finally a sociobiological perspective on early infant behavior. This book will be valuable for courses in medical sociology and anthropology, public health or behavioral sciences, psychology and psychiatry, and for pre-med students.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Carlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is good but not for the casually curious. Its pretty dry, pretty dense and a bit fragmented, it's basically several scholarly papers put into "book" form although little has been done to unite the pieces of research, increase readability or make it seem more like one cohesive tome. I enjoyed it because the information it contains is unusual, and hard to come across, and just the sort of thing I was looking for. Its scholarly research into parenting, birth and postpartum customs in cultures around the world. (America included) Its full of interesting tidbits and does a lot to jar the reader with a Western perspective from our pre-Gallilean position. The world is not doing all the same things that we are, in fact, in most areas we're very, very unusual. Of course there's no merit in "what everyone else is doing" unless it is in some way better than what we're doing but, this book does some significant hole poking into our theories and practices. It covers all kinds of issues: coping with pain in childbirth, confinement after birth, nursing, baby-carrying, teaching children to walk...etc. etc. Very, very interesting but, with room for improvement in the presentation department.