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Childbirth in My Life and Around the World

My Childbirth Experience
I have thought about this blog post all week and have struggled to come up with something to talk about as I don't necessarily feel like I have a birth experience to talk about. I don't know much about my birth experience except that everyone thought I was going to be a boy and my mom had a c-section. I have 7 nieces and nephews and I have been at the hospital for all of their births but I have never actually been in the room to witness the actual birth. All of my siblings only had their spouses in the delivery room. My birth experiences have been in a waiting room waiting patiently with other family members. I have been in the delivery room shortly after a niece or nephew has been born and that has always been a very exciting experiences. Fortunately, all of my nieces and nephews have been healthy and have not needed any interventions during their births or immediately following their births.

Childbirth in the Netherlands
I choose to look at childbirth in the Netherlands. Based on information that I read on a website called Passionate Parenting and an article called Birth in the Netherlands: The Current Situation it seems like home births with a midwife are most common in this country but this over the last few years this process has started to change. This country is starting to see more hospital births which aligns more with the western countries (Van Tuyl, 2012). It doesn't seem like there are too many differences between the United States and Finland when it comes to childbirth.

The one thing I found in my research that was most interesting is all families have access to a kraamzorg which is a professional that comes in up to 8 days after a child is born and helps the family basically learn to take care of a baby (Having a Baby, 2015). This sounds like a great resource that I wish we provided in the United States. I am fortunate enough to have experience taking care of a young infant but I can imagine some new Moms have no experience and have very little guidance. Reading about kraamzorg's make me wonder what postpartum depression rates would look like if we offered this service to all new moms. I also wonder if we would see a decrease in social service calls with newborn infants if families were given more support right out of the gate. I think this service, if offered to all families, could potentially benefit development across the board in the early years of a child.

It does also seem, according to the Passionate Parenting website, that the Netherlands provides information to families in a course base format (Having a Baby, 2015). This website mentions that some people, because they are doing a home birth, may not have much interaction with a doctor (Having a Baby, 2015). I think it's smart of the Netherlands to provide courses about what happens to a women's body during pregnancy and childbirth coaching as it can be a less stressful setting for a new family then a doctor's office (Having a Baby, 2015).

References:

Having a baby in the netherlands. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.passionateparenting.nl/information/having-a-baby-in-the-netherlands/

Van Tuyl, T. (2012). Birth in the netherlands: the current situation. Midwifery Today,104, 62. http://dx.doi.org/0891-7701

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