Birthing Environments Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Birthing Environments - Essay Example The design of the birth environment has remained a great concern in the society right from the olden days when maternity hospitals were scarce and unpopular for many societies in the world. The essence of this paper is to evaluate the social and cultural aspects associated with childbirth as a normal life event and to which these aspects are integrated while designing the physical birth environment. Childbirth as an ordinary life event has a great significance in all societies of the world because it provides the society with the capacity to propagate its generations into the future. Even long before the invention of medicine, earlier generations regarded childbirth as a sensitive and attention-demanding process that required proper preparation right from the pregnancy period up to the moment of child delivery. In fact, the modern design of physical child birth environment has borrowed a lot of its features from the traditional practices. Emphasis of nursing care during childbirth to day can be perceived as an improved version of mid-wifely that was common in the past and is still persistent today in some cultures. Although medical practice has refined the childbirth process, there is still much that remains unsatisfying among many women who still feel the need for improvement of the design of the birth environment. Even with the introduction of maternity facilities in the medical sector, women are still yet to be contented with the birth environment provided in these hospital facilities (Squire, 2009). The social and cultural aspects of childbirth define the ideal environment that birthing should take place. While the older generations experienced home birth, currently a great number of women populations receives medical pregnancy care and deliver on the maternal environment. For instance, Australia recorded 0.2% home births among all women who delivered in 2004, while the rest delivered maternity care units in the country (Foureur, Leap, & Homer, 2013). Whethe r childbirth occurs at home or in the hospital, the serenity and the conduciveness of the environment during this process will determine the comfort that the woman receives while delivering. For instance, the privacy and freedom of the woman during the process are paramount and in some extent determines the ease of delivery. The environment, to some extent, determines the nature of the birth process, whether natural or caesarean. In this view, the physical environment where a woman delivers affects the ease of the process, comfort and care that are available for a woman to deliver successfully. The cultural perspective of child birth is historical and varies from society one society to another, but it is indisputable that each society accords great significance to the process. For instance, in the Hawaiian society, the birthing stones provided a physical environment for birth among Wahianas. In this society, childbirth was a process that started right from the time a woman became pr egnant and ended when the baby was delivered. The cultural significance that this society attached to the entire process emanates from equal importance that is accorded to the child that is delivered in the process. The Wahianas believed that Kukaniloko was a birth environment who those children who had a spiritual tie