Read complete books and articles on: Birth Customs

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8 of the Best Books and Articles on: Birth Customs

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England » Read Now
by David Cressy. 640 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

From childbirth and baptism through to courtship, weddings, and funerals, every stage in the life-cycle of Tudor and Stuart England was accompanied by ritual. Even under the protestantism of the reformed Church, the spiritual and social dramas of birth, marriage, and death were graced with elaborate...
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From childbirth and baptism through to courtship, weddings, and funerals, every stage in the life-cycle of Tudor and Stuart England was accompanied by ritual. Even under the protestantism of the reformed Church, the spiritual and social dramas of birth, marriage, and death were graced with elaborate ceremony. Powerful and controversial protocols were in operation, shaped and altered by the influences of the Reformation, the Revolution, and the Restoration. Each of the major rituals was potentially an arena for argument, ambiguity, and dissent. Ideally, as classic rites of passage, these ceremonies worked to bring people together. But they also set up traps into which people could stumble, and tests which not everybody could pass. In practice, ritual performance revealed frictions and fractures that everyday local discourse attempted to hide or to heal. Using fascinating first-hand evidence, David Cressy shows how the making and remaking of ritual formed part of a continuing debate, sometimes strained and occasionally acrimonious, which exposed the raw nerves of society in the midst of great historical events. In doing so, he vividly brings to life the common experiences of living and dying in Tudor and Stuart England.
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2.

A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo » Read Now
by Nancy Rose Hunt. 476 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

A Colonial Lexicon is the first historical investigation of how childbirth became medicalised in Africa. Rejecting the "colonial encounter" paradigm pervasive in current studies, Nancy Rose Hunt elegantly weaves together stories about autopsies and bicycles, obstetric surgery and male initiation, to...
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A Colonial Lexicon is the first historical investigation of how childbirth became medicalised in Africa. Rejecting the "colonial encounter" paradigm pervasive in current studies, Nancy Rose Hunt elegantly weaves together stories about autopsies and bicycles, obstetric surgery and male initiation, to reveal how concerns about strange new objects and procedures fashioned the hybrid social world of colonialism and its aftermath in Mobutu's Zaire.Relying on archival research in England and Belgium, as well as fieldwork in the Congo, Hunt reconstructs an ethnographic history of a remote British Baptist mission struggling to survive under the successive regimes of King Leopold II's Congo Free State, the hyper-hygienic, pro-natalist Belgian Congo, and Mobutu's Zaire. After exploring the roots of social reproduction in rituals of manhood, she shows how the arrival of the fast and modern ushered in novel productions of gender, seen equally in the forced labour of road construction and the medicalisation of childbirth. Hunt focuses on a specifically inter-war modernity, where the speed of aeroplanes and bicycles correlated with a new, mobile medicine aimed at curbing epidemics and enumerating colonial subjects. Fascinating stories about imperial masculinities, Christmas rituals, evangelical humour, colonial terror, and European cannibalism demonstrate that everyday life in the mission, on plantations, and under a strongly Catholic colonial state was never quite what it seemed. In a world where everyone was living in translation, privileged access to new objects and technologies allowed a class of "colonial middle figures" - particularly teachers, nurses, and midwives - to mediate the evolving hybridity of Congolese society. Successfully blurring conventional distinctions between pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial situations, Hunt moves on to discuss the unexpected presence of colonial fragments in the vibrant world of today's postcolonial Africa.With its close attention to semiotics as well as sociology, A Colonial Lexicon will interest specialists in anthropology, African history, obstetrics and gynaecology, medical history, religion, and women's and cultural studies.
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3.

A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth » Read Now
by Michele Klein. 338 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Psychologist Michele Klein's book, unlike any other book on childbirth, drawers on prayers, folktales, folk remedies, Jewish mystical literature and many historical and religious documents to explore childbirth in a Jewish context. Expecting parents, grandparents, Jewish community workers, even...
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Psychologist Michele Klein's book, unlike any other book on childbirth, drawers on prayers, folktales, folk remedies, Jewish mystical literature and many historical and religious documents to explore childbirth in a Jewish context. Expecting parents, grandparents, Jewish community workers, even obstetricians and midwives will find the book a helpful and informative one about Jewish attitudes, customs and hopes during this special time.
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4.

Life and Ritual in Old Siam: Three Studies of Thai Life and Customs » Read Now
by William J. Gedney, Phraya Anuman Rajadhon. 190 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Phiw Chatinanthana, and "Customs Connected with Birth and the Rearing of Children...its translation series. "Customs Connected with Birth and the Rearing of Children...61...
5.

Social Work Practice with Childbirth-Injured Women in Nigeria, in Health and Social Work » Read Now
by Durrenda Ojanuga. 5 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...because of the differences in family structure, religion, and customs. Yet social workers in both countries use this method as a central...Education, 21(3), 125-130...
6.

An Exploration of Men's Experience and Role at Childbirth, in The Journal of Men's Studies » Read Now
by Martin P. Johnson. 18 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...identified for most men in attending the birth (Vahvilainen-Julkunen Liukkonen, 1998...identified the top three ranking motivations for birth attendance as "supporting...
7.

Case Studies in Dual Classification as Process: Childbirth, Headhunting and Circumcision in West Timor, in Oceania » Read Now
by Andrew Mcwilliam. 6 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...in the life of Timorese households the birth of children, particularly first children...family granaries, as the site for giving birth. Invariably during this time they are...
8.

Monitoring Motherhood: Sociocultural and Historical Aspects of Maternal and Child Health in Japan, in Daedalus » Read Now
by Naoko T. Miyaji, Margaret Lock. 26 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...childs development are publicly supported. Inpatient care for low birth weight babies and treatment of children with disabilities and...sense of responsibility is...