Motherhood (Paper #2)

Jennifer Drache

Gender and Women’s Studies 220W

Dr. Adriane Brown

Motherhood

            Motherhood is defined as a set of natural feelings and behaviors that are switched or turned on by pregnancy and the birth of a baby (Akujobi, 2011). Motherhood is wrapped in many cultural and religious meanings in many societies. Motherhood is wrapped in cultural meanings due to what society thinks a mother should be and religiously with the societies practiced faith that attaches the mother to motherhood (Akujobi, 2011). In many different cultures procreation or giving birth and nurturing new life whether physically or otherwise lead to many different definitions like: “feminine,” “maternal,” and “feminine spiritually,” in many cultures. And some cultures believe that motherhood is recognized as a sacred and powerful spiritual path for a woman to take (Akujobi, 2011). Although motherhood seems very similar, it’s extremely different as well in different countries. Within the paragraphs below, motherhood will be looked at in multiple different aspects; focusing on South Africa and China; ranging from fertility rates, the prevalence of polygamy and son preference, abortion laws and more. This paper will also include some information on a new organization called Mobile Alliance and Maternal Action (MAMA) that is helping mothers in certain countries.

            Most of a women’s life is engaged in childbearing within many countries; this includes South Africa and China. Within the world today, women are known to be having fewer children than their mothers and previous generations. This is due to a couple main factors like increasing availability in reproductive health services which include liberalization of abortion laws and incremental improvements in women’s status and autonomy (Akujobi, 2011). In the book, The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World by Joni Seager, she states that there are an estimated twenty-five million to thirty million legal abortions worldwide each year and twenty million are unsafe. Normally the women who seek abortions are married or live in stable unions and already have a family with children (Seager Joni, 2009).   Abortion has been a struggle for centuries and is also a struggle about the women’s autonomy. Women have the right to control their reproductive choices but that affects their freedom, this affects their participation as well as their degree of economic and social autonomy from men (Seager Joni, 2009). In 1997, South Africa passed a law called The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, which allows the mother to choose to have an abortion or not (LRS, 2012). This law lets any women at any age get an abortion as long as she’s less then thirteen weeks pregnant; but if the woman is between thirteen weeks and twenty weeks the only way she can get an abortion is if she has one of these factors: rape, incest, mothers mental and physical health is at stake, and if baby has abnormalities. If the mother is greater than twenty weeks then she can only receive an abortion if she or the fetus is in danger (LRS, 2012). China on the other hand has the government controlling their abortions. China has whats called the One Child Policy which was developed in 1979. Due to this law, families were forced to receive an abortion (Hubpages, 2012). Young unmarried women also are normally forced to receive an abortion by law because government does not believe that they should be a one child for household mother (Hubpages, 2012).  This law in China has prevented more than at least 300,000 births.  In Joni Seagers book she states that about one-quarter of the worlds women still live in countries with highly restrictive laws on abortion.

            Contraception also pays a huge role in motherhood. If women would have used more of these there wouldn’t be so many abortions or births. Since the 1970’s, women’s use of contraception’s has increased and now more than half of the worlds women use some sort of contraception (Seager Joni, 2009). South Africa is one of the places in the world that don’t use contraceptives much. Ten percent or possible fewer of the population of women who are married use contraception, otherwise twenty percent or more would like to use some sort of contraception to help limit their childbearing but are not using at this time (Seager Joni, 2009). South Africa uses all the same types of birth control that the United States has. The biggest thing in South Africa that prevented the young women from getting contraceptives was due to lack of knowledge and the feeling of being judged (Eldis, 2009). South Africa has limited supplies and due to poor living situations (Eldis, 2009). Seventy percent of women living in China are on some sort of birth control; in ancient China, women were told that consuming mercury heated in oil would prevent them from having babies. It may have worked because mercury can kill a fetus as well as a mother (Hubpages, 2012). China also has contraceptives available like the pill, IUD, and they also state that living with a big family with five people sleeping in a room at one time will count as a contraceptive. In china, the women will often have the string cut off of the IUD so they are not able to remove it (Hubpages, 2012).

            Motherhood is tough in itself going through so many different body changes; then on top of that some countries have what’s called “Son Preference.” A cultural preference for sons over daughters is very universal and boys seem to be more privileged over girls. But in certain countries this preference is acted out in ways that produce demographic distortion (Seager Joni, 2009). The normal birth rate is about ninety-five girls to one-hundred boys. But in several countries they have as few as eighty girls to one-hundred boys. A shortage of women seems to be contributed to local and regional increases in sex trafficking and kidnapping (Seager Joni, 2009).  Some women will go to the extreme of doing prenatal test while the baby is in the womb and if a female fetus is detected then they are aborted. Female infanticide is also common in a few places, within hours to possibly even days after the birth the girl infant is killed (Seager Joni, 2009).  A chronic issue in many regions is the neglect of girls, which includes feeding them less or withholding medical attention. Son preference normally reflects the combination of economics, culture and religion. The countries that have this son preference the most varies widely across India and China; not so much South Africa.

            Another thing mothers have to deal with is maternal mortality. Each year about 200 million women become pregnant; but over half a million of these will die as a result (Seager Joni, 2009).  And then another fifty million women will suffer long-term disability or certain illnesses as a consequence of pregnancy or childbirth (Seager Joni, 2009). This happens all over the world and is not just specific with one individual country. According to the World Health Organization the largest discrepancy between rich and poor countries is maternal mortality (Seager Joni, 2009).  This is known to extract considerable costs from mothers, families and communities ("Mobile alliance for," 2011).  This considerable cost is not just money for everything right away; it includes the direct financial cost of care for complications during delivery as well as the possibility of chronically ill health care that will be life changing down the path of life from all the complications ("Mobile alliance for," 2011).  When a mother dies, surviving children are three to ten times more likely to die within two years, then for children whom live with both parents. Education opportunities and receiving adequate health care are on the down fall as well when the mother passes away ("Mobile alliance for," 2011).  A mother’s death not only affects those things mentioned above but also it can lower the family income and productivity ("Mobile alliance for," 2011). By providing simple prenatal health care, improving maternal nutrition, and providing legal, social and health support that would allow women to avoid unwanted pregnancies, most of these deaths could be prevented (Seager Joni, 2009).  According to Joni Seager Africa has the highest mortality rate. She also explains in her book what the medical causes of maternal mortality, they include: severe bleeding, indirect causes, infection, unsafe abortion, eclampsia, obstructed labor, and other causes. Once these are detected they are easily treatable. For every woman that dies during pregnancy or childbirth, there are approximately twenty more women that experience serious and life-threatening consequences, ones that which impair the mother from taking care of her unborn child ("Mobile alliance for," 2011).

            Teen motherhood is another topic that generates a talk around the world in many different countries. Poor pregnancy outcomes and negative social consequences are commonly associated with young mothers (Kramer & Lancaster, 2010). Teen motherhood has been frowned upon in many different countries for generations. People feel as though teens are not ready to take on the responsibility that is put onto the shoulders of a mother. Like mentioned in the previous paragraphs and how China’s government will force the pregnant teen to abort the fetus. The average age of a mother when she first has a child is between the ages of fifteen years old to twenty years (Kramer & Lancaster, 2010). Financial hard times are normally one of the difficult issues that teen mothers have. If the pregnant teen soon to be mother does not get along with her or his parents, they have no place to live, which happens everywhere (Eshbaugh, E 2008).

            MAMA is an organization that stands for Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action; this organization is a public-private partnership that was launched in May of 2011 by founding partners United States Agency for International Development and Johnson and Johnson along with some other supporting partners ("Mobile alliance for," 2011). MAMA and its partners are working together on making a three year, ten million dollar investment to create and make other programs stronger in three particular countries: Bangladesh, South Africa and India. They are working to enhance global capability of new and existing mobile health information for mothers in these countries ("Mobile alliance for," 2011). Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action picked these three countries first due to the countries elevated maternal and infant mortality and morbidity and high use of mobile phones. They are also partnering with cell phone providers to ensure that they can provide this service to as many women as possible while insuring free or the most inexpensive services for the low income subscribers ("Mobile alliance for," 2011). This organization is not just given to any particular mother; they need to be expected mothers who are at high risk of complications and death during pregnancy and child birth, as well as women who are first time mothers caring for their infant child.  Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action’s goal is to encourage and exchange expertise, ideas, resources, best practices and lessons learned among peer programs that are delivering health information to new and expectant mothers via mobile phones. These messages are available in audio and readable formats to adapt to the mothers best learning style ("Mobile alliance for," 2011).

            Motherhood is a very broad topic. It can be so many different issues and beliefs all in one. Everyone has their own opinion on motherhood and everyone was raised differently especially if you were born in a different country. China is one of the places that practices the things most mentioned in this paper; there government is extremely hard on women when it comes to having more than one child or being a pregnant teen. South Africa has the worst usage for contraceptives due to their decreased knowledge on them, and not being able to get the supplies that they need. Writing this paper really opened my eyes to how different everything really is in different countries but then again very similar. The topics mentioned above in the paper are some of the key things that are huge around the world. Motherhood has been viewed by many different lights and presented in diverse ways and has still been receiving different definitions from both man and women today. 

Bibliography

Eldis. (2009). Barriers to adolescent contraceptive use in south africa . Retrieved from http://www.eldis.org/id21ext/h6kw3g2.html 3

Eshbaugh, E. (2008). Potential Positive and Negative Consequences of Coresidence for Teen       Mothers and their Children in Adult-Supervised Households. Journal Of Child & Family       Studies, 17(1), 98-108. doi:10.1007/s10826-007-9150-5

Hubpages. (2012). Abortion and forced abortion in china. Retrieved from http://einron.hubpages.com/hub/abortionandforcedabortion

LRS. (2012). Labour research service. Retrieved from www.mywage.co.za

Kramer, K., & Lancaster, J. (2010). Teen motherhood in cross-cultural perspective. 614-618.

Mobile alliance for maternal action. (2011). Retrieved from             http://www.mobilemamaalliance.org/why.html

Akujobi, R. (2011). Motherhood in african literature and culture. Retrieved from             http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss1/2

Seager Joni. (2009). The penguin atlas of women in the world. (4th ed., p. 34-43). Brighton, UK:              Myriad Editions.