A Child Is Born
by Germaine Greer
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Germaine Greer, a celebrated feminist writer, contrasts the way childbirth is managed in traditional Eastern societies with the cold, medicalized Western world. Traditional societies handle pregnancy collectively and culturally through taboos, prohibitions and rituals which, though they seem like superstitions, serve a real psychological purpose, keeping the mother's anxiety manageable by giving her a ready cultural script. Greer illustrates this with the Sylheti women of Bangladesh, for whom pregnancy is a continuous festival of joy: the expectant mother returns to her mother's house, is showered with love and freed from chores, and the birth becomes a grand family celebration climaxing in a joyful naming ceremony on the seventh day. This warmth stands in stark contrast to the Western hospital, where childbirth is a clinical, mechanical procedure ruled by 'white-coats'. Quoting Sheila Kitzinger's shocking account of a South African maternity ward, Greer argues that in their anxiety to avoid death, Western hospitals have crushed all pride, dignity and spiritual significance out of childbearing.
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Germaine Greer, a celebrated feminist writer, explores the profound cultural differences in how childbirth, pregnancy and child-rearing are managed in traditional Eastern societies compared to the highly technocratic, medicalized Western world.
The value of traditional rituals
Greer argues that traditional societies manage pregnancy collectively and culturally, employing a structured system of taboos, prohibitions and rituals. While modern minds might dismiss these as old-fashioned superstitions, Greer explains that they serve an invaluable psychological purpose: they keep the pregnant woman's anxiety manageable. By following a pre-established cultural script, the mother is freed from the 'psychic burden' of reinventing the procedures herself.
The Sylheti maternity model
To illustrate the communal warmth of traditional childbirth, Greer presents the example of Sylheti women from Bangladesh. In this community, pregnancy is celebrated as a continuous festival of joy. During the last few months of her pregnancy and the first three months after the baby's birth, a young woman returns to her mother's house, where she is showered with immense love, care and attention, continuously asked what she fancies to eat and relieved of all domestic chores.
The birth of the baby is not a cold, clinical event but an occasion of grand celebration for the entire joint family. When the baby is seven days old, a lovely naming ceremony is held: a new dress is brought for the infant, a new sari is gifted to the mother, and the women gather to sing songs, share jokes, eat pan and celebrate late into the night.
The cold, impersonal Western system
This communal experience stands in stark, painful contrast to the modern Western hospital system, where childbirth has been completely medicalized, turning a natural human experience into a clinical, mechanical procedure. The authority of the 'white-coats' (doctors) is supreme, and hospital births are treated as emergencies.
Greer quotes the shocking observations of researcher Sheila Kitzinger regarding a modern hospital for 'Bantu patients' in South Africa. Kitzinger describes a sterile delivery ward filled with groaning, isolated women laboring alone, surrounded by high-tech equipment, oxytocin drips and automated pumps, while the nurses ignore them, treating them as mere bodies on a conveyor belt. Greer argues that in their clinical anxiety to avoid death, Western hospitals have crushed all pride, dignity and spiritual significance out of childbearing, reducing a major human milestone to a cold, technological transaction.