Belly Dancing for Pregnancy and Birth - the News Articles - Page 3

belly_dancer · 01-29-2008, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A'isha Azar

Dear Andrea,
And we are all thankful that you both did live to dance another day.You might remember Badawia from the late 1970s? She never did have any children. When I asked her why she didn't, considering her ethnic/religious background, she told me about hearing and seeing women giving birth in the village where she lived, close to Bethlehem, when she was a girl. She said all the screaming and obvious terrible pain scared her so much that she just did not have the courage to get pregnant. And I am sure that many women died of Childbirth Fever ( Is that what it's really called? I can't remember) and still do in areas where things are not so clean and where women's ailments during and after pregnancy are not tended to. I only know one American woman who has had it and she had a home delivery. Giving birth is not so easy in even the best of circumstances. I can't even imagine it in situations in which so very many of the world's women give birth.
Regards,
A'isha

there is a great book... "Immaculate Deception" (love that title) that includes alot of history of childbirth... mostly western though I think.... cannot remember... (my youngest will be 8 this year) but a few "loose" quotes I can remember.... "you came (biologically) from a long line of women who were able to give birth" (naturally... as the whole modern medicine way is less than 200 years old.... not long enough for any biological problems to be "bred" into the human race)..
& "birth is a process, NOT a disease" (but lots in the medical profession are taught to look at EVERYTHING that goes on in a hospital as an emergency...(mostly from a lawsuit perspective!!!) as opposed to a process)
ALSO found fascinating.... childbirth fever (while it surely did not originate then) became extremely prevalent with the beginning of doctors INTERVENTION in childbirth....
an example (I can LOOSELY remember) in England... some hospital for the poor alternated w/ the doctors & midwives every other day... & it got so bad (with mothers dying of childbirth fever when the doctors delivered) that the women would rather have their deliver at home... (they may have thought it was superstition... but apparently, this was before the germ theory took hold (so the docs would go from woman to woman... never washing!!!!) & the doctors had a practice of being "invasive" while the midwives very rarely had to "reach inside" (so to speak))...
(& come to think of it.... I came down with "pelvic inflammatory disease" shortly after the birth of my 1st daughter (don't know if still true, but apparently at that time (1985) was the #1 cause of infertility in women 18-24) apparently it is usually caused by stds.... but I did not have one... the only thing they can figure is that I got it when some nurse unnecessarily held my cervix open when I was giving birth.... grrrrr.... ouch!!!)

yuck... enough of that....
MY experience w/ bellydance & pregnancy... I danced til 4 days (teaching 5-6 classes per week) before birth (of just the last one) & of the 3 I can say that the PREGNANCY itself was way easier (even though I was 35 as compared to 19 & 21 w/ the others)..... :
I had absolutely no backache w/ the dancing pregnancy but with the 1st 2 I had hellish back pain (& I was young & in excellent shape= long distance swimmer)
& I was able to handle the contractions/pain better (all three were "natural"=drug free.... but believe me, I am no saint!!!!... I demanded plenty when they were out)... until of course the last 1/2 hour or so when things get ...... whew.... someone else have a word to describe THAT?????

BUT I THINK THE #1 way that belly dance helped me in LABOR: (& NO I IN NO WAY DANCED THRU MY LABOR!!!!!!!!! NOR DID I CALL ANY OF MY MULTITUDE OF DANCING FRIENDS TO COME & "HANG OUT IN THE HAREM" while I gave birth

)
IT WAS SOOOOOO USEFUL TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO RELAX EVERYTHING ELSE WHILE THE ONE MUSCLE WORKED (did you know the uterus is the strongest muscle in your body??) that part was way cool.... it WAS just like a belly roll (the uterine contractions)... from top to bottom.... you could see it... & with all my other muscles relaxed,,, it made it way easier for the baby to "get out"
also according to my OB the "panting" they teach you actually HELPS in the relaxation of the muscles as well.... but the flutter is way better (same muscle but of course if you can flutter it is stronger & controlled & you won't hypervenilate!!)
*Andrea.. thank you for sharing your story... who else has gone thru a pregancy while dancing???
also would love to read up on birth (ancient & modern) in other (non western) countries.... any suggestions??/
*oh another great book for those of you pregnant or considering...
"Spiritual Midwifery" ( I think that is the title?!?)..written by Ina May Gaskin..
fascinating... full of facts & documentation

Andrea Deagon · 01-30-2008, 03:49 AM

I love hearing about others' experiences with dance and labor. Interesting about the uterine contractions. I didn't see this in my own labor, but maybe I was distracted by other things ...

When I was looking into birth customs, I found there was a huge gap between reliable accounts by eyewitnesses who were aware of everything that was going on in the cultural setting, and pop-culture books aimed at pregnant women, that were often full of simplifications and misinformation. It's unfortunate that anthropologists are tending away from comparative studies these days, because this is a topic that really needs some exploration, if only because of our own culture's interest in finding alternate paradigms for birth than the "medical" one.

BTW about the incidence of deaths from childbed fever going up when doctors began taking the place of midwives -- I used to spend a fair amount of times in rare book rooms, and when I was doing some research into historical concepts about insomnia, I happened on an 18th century doctor's journal. I saw right away that it wasn't going to help my project, but I couldn't put it down. It was horrifying. He recounted stealing corpses from graveyards (for research), and all sorts of other dire things, gave a very graphic report of a hanging, many other things that just raised the hairs on my neck. Life was so different then. The thing that finally made me put the book down was this: He narrated how he and his fellow doctor had gotten ahold of a corpse of a woman who had died from childbed fever. They were doing an autopsy of sorts (illegally, without consent of her family, but in seach of knowledge, balance that morally) -- when he got called to deliver a baby. Three days later, he reports that the woman he delivered was dead of childbed fever. I'm sure he had gone straight from the autopsy to her birth room with the infection still on him. They didn't know about germs, of course, didn't feel the same need to wash thoroughly to avoid infection ... It made me feel ill to read it.

Well, this has strayed rather far from the dance topic, but the story stays with me.

Aziyade · 01-30-2008, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by belly_dancer

an example (I can LOOSELY remember) in England... some hospital for the poor alternated w/ the doctors & midwives every other day... & it got so bad (with mothers dying of childbirth fever when the doctors delivered) that the women would rather have their deliver at home... (they may have thought it was superstition... but apparently, this was before the germ theory took hold (so the docs would go from woman to woman... never washing!!!!) & the doctors had a practice of being "invasive" while the midwives very rarely had to "reach inside" (so to speak))...

It was common practice for doctors in Europe in the 1880s to perform "autopsies" on dead bodies and then go right into delivering babies, with hands largely unwashed. Viennese doctor Semmelweis was one of the first to realize this maybe wasn't a good idea, and made his staff wash their hands and forbade them from going from corpses directly to the living. His colleagues thought he was an idiot for his ideas, but pregnant women were literally begging to be brought to the hospital where he worked, since their mortality rate was so much lower than that of other hospitals.

The midwives weren't doing autopsies, and probably knew better all along. But nobody listened to them either. It probably wasn't until Lister that people started paying attention. Amazing, really.

belly_dancer · 01-30-2008, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aziyade

It was common practice for doctors in Europe in the 1880s to perform "autopsies" on dead bodies and then go right into delivering babies, with hands largely unwashed. Viennese doctor Semmelweis was one of the first to realize this maybe wasn't a good idea, and made his staff wash their hands and forbade them from going from corpses directly to the living. His colleagues thought he was an idiot for his ideas, but pregnant women were literally begging to be brought to the hospital where he worked, since their mortality rate was so much lower than that of other hospitals.

The midwives weren't doing autopsies, and probably knew better all along. But nobody listened to them either. It probably wasn't until Lister that people started paying attention. Amazing, really.

I wonder how many people know who/why "Listerine" was named for!!!

Aisha Azar · 01-30-2008, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aziyade

It was common practice for doctors in Europe in the 1880s to perform "autopsies" on dead bodies and then go right into delivering babies, with hands largely unwashed. Viennese doctor Semmelweis was one of the first to realize this maybe wasn't a good idea, and made his staff wash their hands and forbade them from going from corpses directly to the living. His colleagues thought he was an idiot for his ideas, but pregnant women were literally begging to be brought to the hospital where he worked, since their mortality rate was so much lower than that of other hospitals.

The midwives weren't doing autopsies, and probably knew better all along. But nobody listened to them either. It probably wasn't until Lister that people started paying attention. Amazing, really.

Dear Aziyade,
I could be wrong, here, but I do not think it has much do with doctors or midwives delivering. There are high rates of death for both mothers and babies in countries where there is little sanitation and no doctors involved in the birth process. Midwives are delivering babies and also losing them, if the conditions are not clean. My friend who had Childbirth Fever had a midwife. I also have had friends who delivered with midwives who had no trouble at all. I had no trouble and I was in the hospital delivering under the watchful eye of my favorite physician. Actually, in the U.S. if I remember correctly, even WITH clean conditions, we have the highest mortality rate among newborns. I wish I could remember where I read that, but it shocked me terribly.
They also used to shove cloth tampons up new mothers who were bleeding profusely after they gave birth. Nice and germy to be sure....
Regards,
A'isha

Aziyade · 01-30-2008, 09:07 PM

It wasn't infant mortality, it was the mother's mortality rates that were so dramatic. Here's the wiki on him, but I was wrong about it being the hospital that was different: it was the ward.

Ignaz Semmelweis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Semmelweis became the titular house officer of the First Obstetrical Clinic in July 1846, which had a maternal mortality rate due to puerperal fever of 13.10%. This was well-known at the time, and many women preferred to give birth to their children on the street rather than being brought there. The Second Obstetrical Clinic had a mortality rate due to puerperal fever of only 2.03%, however; both were located in the same hospital and used the same techniques, with the only difference being the individuals who worked there. The first was the teaching service for medical students, while the second had been selected in 1839 for the instruction of midwives."

Medical students had their hands in dead bodies. Midwives didn't. That led to a lot of interesting conclusions.

On infant mortality, you probably saw this story:
U.S.'s low rank for newborns' survival - Kids and parenting - MSNBC.com

or this:
First 24 Hours of Life Most Dangerous Time for Children in Developing World, Report Finds: Save the Children

which is pretty surprising, and some say controversial. NPR jumped on the story as political propaganda. I don't know anything about the organization that did the study. These findings seem a little odd, compared to worldwide infant mortality rates after one year, but I'm no doctor. This is the most recent data I can find, though, and it's 3 years old:

List of countries by infant mortality rate (2005 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Aisha Azar · 01-30-2008, 09:43 PM

Dear Aziyade,
Thanks for the info!
Regards,
A'isha

Sa'ada · 04-16-2009, 07:58 PM

This is just a quick note to share my own experience with my own pregnancies (two homebirthed, another on the way) and bellydance.
In the early months of pregnancies keeping moving and dancing kept me flexible and in touch with my body. That kind of body-mind-self connection is so crucial for a healthy birth, and aids a gal to be more fully confident in her own abilities.
Bellydance helped me especially in those last months and weeks. Both my girls did not turn to be head down until within two weeks of their birth. The body awareness I had developed, knowing what I was feeling, and having that muscle memory and experience with bellydance helped me move in ways that not only eased the discomfort for me, but also assisted the baby inside to turn and come out head first.

I wish I could comment more about that last stages of active labor, but I kind of trance-out at that point. My body just takes over.

)

Sa'ada -- Middle Eastern Style Dance Customized to Your Event
Prenatal Bellydance Classes on Seattle's Eastside Sa'ada -- Prenatal Bellydance Classes on Seattle's Eastside

01-30-2008, 03:49 AM	#22
Andrea Deagon Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Wilmington, NC Posts: 208	I love hearing about others' experiences with dance and labor. Interesting about the uterine contractions. I didn't see this in my own labor, but maybe I was distracted by other things ... When I was looking into birth customs, I found there was a huge gap between reliable accounts by eyewitnesses who were aware of everything that was going on in the cultural setting, and pop-culture books aimed at pregnant women, that were often full of simplifications and misinformation. It's unfortunate that anthropologists are tending away from comparative studies these days, because this is a topic that really needs some exploration, if only because of our own culture's interest in finding alternate paradigms for birth than the "medical" one. BTW about the incidence of deaths from childbed fever going up when doctors began taking the place of midwives -- I used to spend a fair amount of times in rare book rooms, and when I was doing some research into historical concepts about insomnia, I happened on an 18th century doctor's journal. I saw right away that it wasn't going to help my project, but I couldn't put it down. It was horrifying. He recounted stealing corpses from graveyards (for research), and all sorts of other dire things, gave a very graphic report of a hanging, many other things that just raised the hairs on my neck. Life was so different then. The thing that finally made me put the book down was this: He narrated how he and his fellow doctor had gotten ahold of a corpse of a woman who had died from childbed fever. They were doing an autopsy of sorts (illegally, without consent of her family, but in seach of knowledge, balance that morally) -- when he got called to deliver a baby. Three days later, he reports that the woman he delivered was dead of childbed fever. I'm sure he had gone straight from the autopsy to her birth room with the infection still on him. They didn't know about germs, of course, didn't feel the same need to wash thoroughly to avoid infection ... It made me feel ill to read it. Well, this has strayed rather far from the dance topic, but the story stays with me. __________________ "I am not contradictory, I am dispersed." (Roland Barthes)

01-30-2008, 09:07 PM	#26
Aziyade Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Cornfields of Evansville Indiana. Posts: 2,443	It wasn't infant mortality, it was the mother's mortality rates that were so dramatic. Here's the wiki on him, but I was wrong about it being the hospital that was different: it was the ward. Ignaz Semmelweis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Semmelweis became the titular house officer of the First Obstetrical Clinic in July 1846, which had a maternal mortality rate due to puerperal fever of 13.10%. This was well-known at the time, and many women preferred to give birth to their children on the street rather than being brought there. The Second Obstetrical Clinic had a mortality rate due to puerperal fever of only 2.03%, however; both were located in the same hospital and used the same techniques, with the only difference being the individuals who worked there. The first was the teaching service for medical students, while the second had been selected in 1839 for the instruction of midwives." Medical students had their hands in dead bodies. Midwives didn't. That led to a lot of interesting conclusions. On infant mortality, you probably saw this story: U.S.'s low rank for newborns' survival - Kids and parenting - MSNBC.com or this: First 24 Hours of Life Most Dangerous Time for Children in Developing World, Report Finds: Save the Children which is pretty surprising, and some say controversial. NPR jumped on the story as political propaganda. I don't know anything about the organization that did the study. These findings seem a little odd, compared to worldwide infant mortality rates after one year, but I'm no doctor. This is the most recent data I can find, though, and it's 3 years old: List of countries by infant mortality rate (2005 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Last edited by Aziyade; 01-30-2008 at 09:21 PM.

01-30-2008, 09:43 PM	#27
Aisha Azar V.I.P. Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Pacific Northwest USA Posts: 5,313	Childbirth, etc. Dear Aziyade, Thanks for the info! Regards, A'isha

04-16-2009, 07:58 PM	#28
Sa'ada Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Seattle, Wa area Posts: 28	This is just a quick note to share my own experience with my own pregnancies (two homebirthed, another on the way) and bellydance. In the early months of pregnancies keeping moving and dancing kept me flexible and in touch with my body. That kind of body-mind-self connection is so crucial for a healthy birth, and aids a gal to be more fully confident in her own abilities. Bellydance helped me especially in those last months and weeks. Both my girls did not turn to be head down until within two weeks of their birth. The body awareness I had developed, knowing what I was feeling, and having that muscle memory and experience with bellydance helped me move in ways that not only eased the discomfort for me, but also assisted the baby inside to turn and come out head first. I wish I could comment more about that last stages of active labor, but I kind of trance-out at that point. My body just takes over. ) Sa'ada -- Middle Eastern Style Dance Customized to Your Event Prenatal Bellydance Classes on Seattle's Eastside Sa'ada -- Prenatal Bellydance Classes on Seattle's Eastside