Health Response Paper
The state of being “healthy” is embedded with cultural perspectives. That thought never occurred to me until this past month, as we’ve studied health in the developing world. What may qualify as healthy to someone else may not be the same for my definition of healthy. There are a lot of cultural assumptions that have originated from my American upbringing, such as the idea that having a baby is not a life-threatening endeavor. When someone I know goes into labor, I am not concerned for their life but rather excited because they will leave the hospital in due time with, hopefully, a very healthy baby. There is an innate trust in the doctors and American medical system that most women in the world are not privileged to have. Maternal mortality is an incredibly widespread issue and yet many diseases take precedence in funding and attention. One point that was brought up in class was that in a way, our society has accommodated birth as a part of life, even if the mother dies, and so there is no shock value. Unfortunately, most donor money is directed towards popularized causes, HIV/AIDS for example, because it is more about society’s attention and approval than actual impact.
I consistently struggle with the issue of cultural relativism. I am in full understanding and agreement that one’s environment and experiences shapes beliefs, character, worldview, etc which allows for much variance around the world. I wrestle, however, when it comes to cultural practices like footbinding, female genital cutting, and honor killings. One can argue the point that each of these practices are cultural traditions and “just a part of the culture.” However, does there not come a point when they cause blatant harm to another human being and cannot be tolerated? Very easily, people object to honor killings, without a second thought at the fact that they are technically “part of the culture.” Footbinding was a cultural practice that was extremely prevalent in Chinese society. The West put pressure on China to stop the practice and they made progress slowly until, now decades later, the practice is very rare. Was that overstepping boundaries? In hindsight, I doubt many would say yes. It was a blatant form of oppression of women. Regarding female genital cutting, one opinion is that it is a cultural tradition and those outside of the culture overstep boundaries in disagreeing with it. Another opinion is that it does not matter; it is still wrong and oppressing women. I vacillate between wanting to believe both sides.
One of the major concerns related to maternal mortality is the availability of a skilled birth attendant during the actual delivery. This is often made difficult by the limited number of hospitals and vast number of women living in rural areas. Nigeria is a prime example of how lack in this respect conversely affects female health. Seventy percent of births in Nigeria take place in rural areas. Approximately twenty seven percent of those rural births were assisted by a skilled birth attendant. On a much more positive note, sixty seven percent of urban births were assisted by a skilled birth attendant. Interestingly enough, not even all of the women in the richest demographic had a SBA present (only 84%). Furthermore, the World Health Organization asserts that Nigeria, in addition to having decentralized health facilities, has mostly rundown buildings and equipment with which to serve their patients. Nigeria also lacks a formal method for accountability in public and private services. It is valuable to point out as well that Nigeria varies a lot by region. For example, the Northeast and Northwest have significantly higher teenage pregnancy rates than the Southeast and Southwest. I wonder whether or not that deficit can be explained by economic disparities, religious trends, etc.
