Child Bearing Experience

Hello Everyone,
I honestly do not have a child bearing experience, neither have I experienced any childbearing experience but I decided to check YouTube. Some videos were blocked because of my location; I am currently in Paris on a business thing. However, after watching several videos both interesting and somewhat horrifying but beautiful, I had to call my mother to ask for her experience of my birth.

She said it was smooth even though I weighed 3.80 kg. She said that when she felt the labor pain my father took her to the hospital and she gave birth with ease. She really did not give me details like I expected. In the videos I watched about childbirth in the US in the 1960's, the interesting aspect to me which I was unaware of until now is the part of childbearing that involves the birthing of the placenta. I had no idea that a child had to be placed on a mothers chest to keep warm, suckle and make the birthing of the placenta easy.

In Nigeria where I am from and where I live, childbirth is never seen or experienced by a woman till she is married,pregnant and in labor, the only people that have a preview of childbirth are Doctors, Nurses, Mid-Wives, and  women in rural areas who do not have access to hospitals. Most women recount the experience as painful, messy and unpleasant but joyful in the end.

In Africa however, the gender of a child determines the development of a child and the experiences a child will have throughout the life span. A baby boy's birth is celebrated more than a girl's because its a patriarchal society. A child's birth is pretty much the same in Africa as it is in the US; the only difference is the treatment of the placenta. It is examined in the US and used probably for research but in Nigeria particularly, the placenta is given to the father of the child to do away with. It is usually buried in a place known to the father alone because of the fetish and religious environment we live in. Nurses cannot be trusted to handle it with care and there is no adequate technology in place for research or preservation.

In conclusion, it was a pleasant thing to watch how children are brought into the world. I learned a lot especially about the placenta and the fact that the birthing passage area could expand that much. Though I have heard horrifying stories, I look forward to the motherhood period of my life.