From: ssg9328@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Samart Srijumnong)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: >Need cultural info on childbirth practices
Keywords: Thailand
Date: 15 Oct 92 03:16:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.Bw57rw.8DF
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana


In soc.culture.thai you write:

>My girlfriend is interested in finding out about customs surrounding childbirth
>in other (non-US) cultures - in particular, southeast Asian and nearby Pacific
>island, Latin-American, and American Indian cultures.

>She would like to know about any customs, rituals, or traditions surrounding
>childbirth, whether it be prenatal, at the time of delivery, or immediately
>post-birth. Such things as birthing environment, preparation, religious
>involvement, what members of the family or community are traditionally
>present, and anything else that might be unique to a culture would be of
>great interest to her.

>If you have a spare moment and would like to share your knowledge or
>experiences with her, it would be greatly appreciated. Please e-mail
>responses to jbs@ee.egr.duke.edu, as I will be unable to keep up with all the
>newsgroups involved.  Please indicate on your messages which culture the
>information is for, as I am posting this request to many newsgroups.

>Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

>  -joe

>jbs@ee.egr.duke.edu
>-- 
>                You spend the night
>            Like you were spending a dime


>X-Spook-Fodder: CIA NSA FBI SBI Bush overthrow uprise assasinate anarchy

Khun Joe,

	There are some books on this but they seem to differ. I don't have
time to do research and come up with a generalization. I then will present
you with my own experience I encountered when I was young.

	We lived in a village in the skirt of a medium-sized city of Thailand. 
Most villagers depended on planting orchard, e.g. beatle nut, coconut, 
banana, mangoes, pamelode, and the likes. 

	Our houses were made of wood with elevated living floor. The floor
layout was simple with a big common room and one or two other large rooms for
sleeping. The kitchen is placed in a separate house bridged to the main house
only by what we call Nork"Chaan. 

	There were three families of three brothers living in this same house.
the sections are comparted by some furnitures like show cases. We slept in
huge mosquito net which could creat a little territory and privacy on such
common floor. 

	When a woman was prenant. She would be taught by her mother or other
senior female relatives of what to eat or not to, what to do or not to, and
something. I recall something like the prenant woman should not take a bath
at night. She should not eat/drink coconut or its juice. When the birthing
date comes close, the husband will prepare woods for her fire-living period,
which was normally took about a week or so depending on the woman's health.

	At my house, the kitchen was used for the birthing place. A square
of wood box (about 8" high and 4'x 8') was built. The space was later filled
with soil. Nearby, a platform of about 15-20 inches wide and body's lenght
long was built for the would be mother to lie on. 

	A hole of about 6"x6" was made on the floor near the lying board for
the mothering woman to release her wastes. Just underneath such hole,
a big hole was dug into the ground. It was fensed by thorned stems apparently
to prevent dogs from consuming such wastes. 

	When birthing time arrived, often at night, I did not really
know what happened. As kid, I was required to hit the bed at about 8:00 only
to woke up to see the new baby the mothering woman lying on the platform.
If the woman gave birth at day time, the whole operation was done in a room
with the door closed. A midwife who was mostly male was helping the birth
giving. He was the one who supervise the woman to push, hold breathes, 
or solved problem when complication resulted. When the baby was out of
the mother body, the midwife will cut the life feeding "tube" leaving about
three inches of it from the baby stomach. The tube was cut by pre-made 
bamboo knife. THe tupe was immediately tied with white clean thread. 

	I was told that after being born the baby was cleaned and clothed and
then put on a little mattess called Bo' in Thai. The midwife would then
lift the whole mattess up and say something like "Come and get it (the baby);
otherwise we'll keep it. The midwife was obviousely talking to the devil spirit.
After that moment the baby became a human being. He/she did not get name from
the beginning. 

	THe mother will have to be careful in moving. The fire was set on
fire place on the square. The mother had to keep turning her body to receive
heat from the fire. They believed it would help her womb to restore faster.
They used the term Kaw"Ou' to characterize normalcy of the womb (= to
enter the envelop, or something like that). The new mother could not eat 
everything. She normally ate rice soup with salt. She took a bath of the
water which was boiled and mixed with some herbal leaves. 

	I should have mentioned that the thorned stems taken from the tree
were also to prevent a certain kind of spirit to consume the mother's waste.
If that happened, the well-being of the mother and the baby were endangered.

	I should have also mentioned that the tissue of fetus stuffs came along
with the baby after was cut off had to be wrapped in white cloth and buried
under a certain kind of tree. Its location had to be calculated befored by
the village's magic man (shaman?). 

	THe baby depended solely on his/her mother breast milk. The mother 
sometimes was fed with Chinese chives, believing that it would make her
produced more breast milk. 

	The parents were not supposed to prepare anything for the new baby
at all. Doing so could result in loosing the child's life, justifying that
the bad spirit would know the baby was to be born. The pamper-liked cloth
was right away made (out of used woman slong--used but cleaned). It would be
made in rectrangular of about 24" x 12". A bamboo tray (called Kra'Dong")
is placed up side down. Then a thick piece of cloth was laid first before
the thiner sheet of cloth would be put on. Between this thin sheet and
the thick one, there was a plastic sheet, apparently used to prevent the 
baby leak to cut through the thick mattess.

	Later the baby could be given name by a monk who normally used the
date and time of birthing in his calculation. SOmetimes, the names of the
parents were also put in the formula. 

	Until about three months, the baby had to feed on his/her mother's
breast milk. Later, however, the mother may prepare baby food by chewing
rice in her mouth and unloaded it in a bowl and mixed with some salt. Some
might also roast banana and blended it with this rice. 

	I had witnessed this practice for some times. Later, thanks to
modern hospital, many pregnant chose to give birth in the hospitals instead.
The baby food was automatically supervised closedly by the doctor. No more
chewed rice! No more breast milk! Many were adviced to use sweetened milk.
Many years later, it was banned from feeding baby. I wonder what the 
Thais who were fed with such later banned milk have grown up to be.


Regards,

Samart Srijumnong
Champaign, Illinois
October 14, 1992
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai