Wendy White

Springville, Utah
Senior, Anthropology
Utah State University

"Ethnographic field school should be a requirement for any student hoping to continue their education in anthropology."

Birth and Pregnancy in Peru
By Wendy C. White
Introduction

One of my first experiences upon arriving in Huanchaco was to walk down by the pier and look at the souvenirs for sale. I enjoyed being a typical tourist, walking along in flip-flops, looking at surfers. I saw the common bracelets, bags, and key chains, but among all of the inexpensive tourist junk one thing caught my eye. On one of the vendor’s tables I saw an intriguing piece of pottery. The piece of pottery showed a figure of a woman having a baby violently yanked out of her stomach. The woman in the figurine had her eyes popping out and her mouth wide open. She appeared to be screaming and is definitely in a great deal of pain. The man that is standing directly above the woman is pulling at the baby full force. His neck and arm muscles are straining to grab the infant and wrench it from the mother’s womb. The image was so violent that I stared at it for a few minutes before handing it back to the amused vendor. It was this image that I had ingrained in my mind while I conducted my research on birth and pregnancy in Huanchaco.

My original research question evolved around the emotions and rituals that accompany childbirth in Peru. I had hoped to answer personal questions that I had concerning the role of community in eliminating postpartum depression. It turned out that this issue was not particularly relevant to the women I spoke with. Instead, the women I interviewed repeatedly told me about the physical pain of pregnancy and how pain can be alleviated. As a result of these discussions, I have altered my paper from its original format. I have broken up my paper into three separate categories. I begin by discussing the amount of isolation and support that women experience during pregnancy. Later, I discuss pregnancy beliefs and how they manifest themselves in the form of rituals. I conclude my discussion with the medical aspect of giving birth and the herbal remedies that the women I have conversed with have shared with me.

It would be arrogant and foolish of me if I were to suggest that I have been able to draw any in-depth conclusions about birth and pregnancy in Peru after only five weeks of research on the topic. I am not suggesting that my report on this topic is at all conclusive. It is merely a brief overview and I hope that it will leave readers with an interest in the topic rather than an in-depth understanding. During my research I found that childbirth is both universal and culture specific in nature. It is for this reason that my topic is significant.

Background

I conducted my research in Huanchaco, Peru. Huanchaco is a tranquil city located about 8 hours north of Lima. It has a population somewhere between 30-50,000. The town has thrived for over three thousand years as a fishing village, but it has started to dramatically shift in character. In the last decade or so Huanchaco has changed drastically and has pulled in tourists from around the world because of its ideal surfing location. There are spots along the beach where a surfer can ride the waves for over a mile.

Because this town is an interesting mix of both old and new it was an ideal place to do research. Within the town I was able to find informants that could tell me about the town in its original state. I also learned the birthing customs of women from several different regions of Peru because I was able to meet a variety of women. Perhaps the most important reason to come to Huanchaco for my research was because of the friendly and relaxed atmosphere of the town. Everywhere I went I met with people who were willing to let me speak with them and who welcomed me into their homes.

Before coming to Peru, I did background research on birth and pregnancy in general. I was particularly impressed by Naomi Wolf’s book entitled Misconceptions. This book discusses the misconceptions that most Americans have about the process of giving birth. Specifically, it talks about the medicalization and isolation that women feel during pregnancy and shortly after labor. In my own life, I have observed friends and family members during pregnancy. I have noticed that many women suffer emotionally and psychologically throughout this time of life. As I am nearing the stage of life when I will also have children, I am hoping to answer questions about the universal nature of pregnancy and childbirth.

What I have discovered about childbirth conflicted a bit with some of my original theories. I found that solutions to the dilemmas that women experience during pregnancy are not easy to come by. In America, discussions on pregnancy often focus on the psychological aspects of childbirth. Women worry about weight gain, restrictions on freedom, isolation and post-partum depression. Although I never did reach a conclusion as to whether or not these concerns are valid among Peruvian women, I did discover that they were not the center of any of my discussions.

For instance, the topic of weight gain is just one way that Peruvian attitudes about pregnancy differ from those in the United States. Many American women fret about weight gain throughout their entire pregnancy. They worry that they look fat and they brood over the fear that they will never lose the weight after the child is born. Movie stars are applauded for their rigorous and successful weight loss schemes after they give birth. There are even magazines specifically geared towards pregnant women who want to maintain a certain image. When I broached this topic with the Peruvian women my questions were received with furrowed eyebrows and head shaking. I was told that weight gain was a very natural thing and that it was not really a worry for the women here.

Post-partum depression, another big concern for American women, seems to be almost a non-issue here in Huanchaco. The women here deal with the time after birth by having many members of the family present to care for the mother. “The mothers are happy!” One woman told me. I was told that the support of family nearby helps to diminish depression.

Methodology

As an ethnographer, I applied several different research methods to obtain information. My first goal when arriving in Huanchaco was to establish rapport within the community. I did this by participating in local events and visiting with people that I met. The most important contact that I made was with a woman by the name of Margot. Margot had a positive experience the year before with anthropology students, so she was an easy and willing contact. Margot was able to give me several contacts for formal interviews.

The majority of my information was gathered with formal interviews, and this helped me in a number of ways. First of all, I was able to maintain a very loose structure with the interviews so as to allow the women I spoke with the flexibility to talk about the issues that they thought to be most important. It was also a good way to gain a large amount of material in a short amount of time. Finally, using formal interviews allowed me to use an interpreter so that there were fewer language barriers.

Unfortunately, this methodology had some unwanted and unanticipated impacts on my research as well. One of the disadvantages of formal interviews turned out to be that most of my informants were briefed beforehand as to what kind of topics I was interested in discussing. This may or may not have influenced the type of data I received. My fear is that the informants may have felt limited during our discussions because they were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. I cannot be certain if this is the case. Also, because I interviewed a narrow range of informants I am unsure if their responses represent the norm of the community.

My final method for gathering information was to use informal interviewing techniques. I did this as I came into contact with different people from Peru. I have included some of the anecdotes from these informal interviews in my paper because I think that they represent some of the attitudes and ideas that people in Peru have about birthing customs.

Discussion

Support and Isolation during Childbirth

Most women experience both support and isolation during pregnancy and childbirth. On the one hand, a new mother is never alone. Her child is always close at hand calling out for assistance. On the other hand, the experience of motherhood can often be supremely isolating. New mothers face a dramatic identity shift as they realize the new role that they are now expected to embrace. The women I interviewed shared their stories with me about the importance of family support after pregnancy. Some of them also told me about the importance of family during labor, others told me of their preference to be alone during childbirth.

Although family may be available after and during pregnancy, the amount of support that a woman receives during labor depends on the region where she lives. Most of the women in Huanchaco have family close at hand during labor. This is drastically different from the more rural areas of Peru, such as Cajamarca, where a mother may be alone during labor. Lucy, a woman from this particular region, told me that during labor a woman feels shame and embarrassment. Her own mother would clear everyone out of her bedroom and tell the children to be quiet. She would then sit in her bedroom, on a blanket, on the floor to give birth. If she heard any noise outside the door the contractions would stop because of the embarrassment. When I asked Lucy where the father is during labor she told me that the father is out getting drunk and celebrating. “They treat the women like animals,” she said in disgust. Despite the isolation and pain, Lucy told me proudly and confidently that she planned on giving birth alone.

Isolation during labor is common in other regions as well. I found this same tradition when I took a short trip into the Andes to tour the ruins of Chavin. Along the sides of the road I saw small homes made from reeds and grass. Some of these homes are three or four hours away from any city. A guide told me excitedly that many of the women in the huts end up giving birth alone and are sometimes even forced to cut the umbilical cord by themselves because their husbands may be working far away.

One thing that I discovered throughout all of my interviews was that support after childbirth is important. I was fascinated to learn that for the first forty days after a baby is born the mother is bedridden. The philosophy that the woman is weak and needs to rest after childbirth may actually have a very positive emotional impact on new mothers. Their only responsibility during this time is to feed the baby. This is quite different than the tradition in the United States to toss new mothers out after only 24 hours of care and relaxation in the hospital! The new mother’s relatives see to her physical needs, take care of the house and any other children, and even change the new infant’s diapers. This way, the mother can slowly recuperate with the help of family close at hand. The role of the extended family remains vital throughout the child’s life. One woman told me that it is common for a baby to grow up calling many different women “mother.”

Rituals and Beliefs:

There is a strong catholic influence with all of the beliefs that surround pregnancy. Because Catholicism is against contraceptives, most Catholic women in Peru end up having large families. One of my informants was a 94-year-old woman named Luisa. Over the course of her lifetime she had given birth to fourteen children. When I asked Luisa why she would choose to have so many children when such pain is involved she told me that it was because God sent them to her. As a funny afterthought Luisa added, “God and men who don’t know how to wait.” This made the group of women I was sitting with erupt into a chorus of laughter. “Here the men don’t know how to rest!” She said cheerfully.

This belief also became apparent when I asked the women what remedies they had to avoid pregnancy. They could not think of any. Lucy told me, “Whatever comes, is what God sent.” The consequences for going against the Catholic Church and using or selling contraceptives can be grave. I had one interview with a woman named Susana who started to sell contraceptives in the 1960s when they first came out. Susana was a pharmacist and a Catholic. During this time period she lived in Cajabamba. Cajabamba had a lot of peasants that would end up getting pregnant and then have abortions. The abortions were incredibly dangerous. Susana thought that it was better to sell the contraceptive to prevent the greater evil of having abortions. Later, when she went to church, the priest would not give her communion because she had been selling birth control. She had to go to a different church where she found a priest that agreed with the fact that she was helping women to avoid a greater evil.

Some of the folklore surrounding pregnancy in Peru is similar to what I have heard in the United States. One example of this is the way that women can decipher the sex of their child. The way the stomach juts out will tell a new mother if she is having a male or a female. If the pregnant woman’s abdomen grows straight out then the baby is supposed to be born a boy. If the stomach grows wider, with the mother gaining more weight in the hips then the baby is a girl. I was also told that if the stomach feels hard then the baby is a boy, and if it is soft then it is a girl. Luisa told me that if the stomach pokes straight out than the baby is a boy. If the stomach grows wider, then the baby is a girl. Margot told me that these two methods for telling the sex of the baby were so reliable that there was no need for a woman to have a sonogram.

Not only is the way the stomach looks important for telling the sex of the baby, it can also tell a woman whether or not she will have twins or not. If the woman has a dark line extending down the center of her stomach, then it is likely that the mother will be having twins.

Another common belief that many women shared with me revolved around a fear about the fragile nature of a newborn. Many of the women I spoke with talked about the concept that a newborn baby’s head can easily break. There is a belief that the baby’s head is incredibly delicate and that with the force of birth the head may split open. After birth this concern remains, and new mothers attempt to prevent this by putting a hat on the child. The hat fits snugly and is usually made out of cotton or lamb’s wool. After a month, the hat can be removed because the danger has passed.

One theme that was discussed frequently in my interviews was that of the Evil Eye and how to prevent it. The concept of the Evil Eye is a complex one that is present throughout Latin American culture. Anyone can be in danger of having someone give him or her the Evil Eye. Because it is such an important thing to avoid, the women told me how they would prevent their new babies from catching this spiritual disease. One belief is that putting a red shirt on the baby can prevent the Evil Eye. Another form of prevention is to tie a piece of wood, a bean, and a bit of garlic on a string. The string is then tied around the infant’s wrist or around their neck as a necklace to ward off the Evil Eye.

If the new baby is unfortunate enough to catch the Evil Eye, then a series of rituals can help to cleanse the child. If rituals are not performed then the child is at risk of getting ill or even dying. One of the rituals that I heard of involved reenacting the birth of the infant. Family members bind the baby up tightly and the new mother wears a loose blouse. The baby is then passed through the blouse three times. This ritual combines Catholic belief with local folklore because the number of times the baby is passed through the mother’s blouse symbolizes the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Medicinal Aspects of Childbirth

The medicinal aspect of giving birth has changed drastically in the last few decades. Luisa, the contact I mentioned earlier, had worked with her mother who served as a midwife for all of Huanchaco. She shared with me some of the useful herbal remedies that the women would use before, during, and after pregnancy. All of my interviews had a focus on the medicinal aspect of giving birth.

Getting pregnant did not seem to be a big concern for the women. Most women get married at a young age and the consensus among my interviews as to the proper time to have children seemed to be between the ages of 19-35 years old. During one portion of my visit in Huanchaco I met a woman that was twenty-one years old, married, and had a four-year-old daughter. The fact that I was twenty-two years old, had been married for a year and did not have any children caused the women in one interview to tease me, affectionately calling me “Abuela,” which means “Grandma.” To increase fertility, I was told that seafood was good to eat. Any type of starfish, lobster, or fish could help. Some of the other remedies that were shared with me were eggs, giso, and chicha de jora. Chicha de jora is a drink that is made with a mix of corn, water, peanuts and lots of cinnamon.

After getting pregnant, morning sickness and nausea are the next nuisance that a woman must deal with. This is common in the United States as well as in Peru. One woman told me that mineral water helps cure nausea. Another woman told me that chicken broth with a little bit of lemon will help. Fortunately, morning sickness usually only lasts during the first trimester and then the woman starts to feel better.

Miscarriages are also a problem with many pregnancies. Carmela, one of Margot´s relatives, told me that an herbal drink with a mixture of alcohol and clay can help to cure this. Lucy said that if there is a partidora available then she would help to push the baby into the right position. A partidora is a woman that helps to counsel the mother during pregnancy. The partidora will come every month starting during the fourth month of pregnancy. By pushing the mothers stomach the partidora can help to ensure that the baby shifts into the right position so that a breeched birth and a miscarriage are avoided.

Labor is usually the most painful part of any pregnancy, and most women have learned to deal with this pain by giving birth in the hospital. Lucy and Luisa had the best remedies for pain control because they had been forced to give birth or see women give birth in environments where medical care was not readily available. Luisa said that when she worked with her mother they would give the woman a laxative when she was close to giving birth to help clean her digestive system out. Basil is an herb that has been used to give the mother the strength to push. Lucy said that during labor the mother is given Manzanilla, (also known as Chamomile,) tea to help soothe her.

One complication that many women are faced with during labor is trying to give birth to a child in a breeched position. Most hospitals usually end up taking the baby through cesarean section because trying to give birth to a baby in a breeched position can be a long and dangerous process. One informant, by the name of Juanita, shared a secret with me about how to speed up labor if the child is breeched. She told me that sticking a turkey feather down the mother’s throat will make her throw up and it will also speed up the labor by making her push harder.

After labor, the mother may be given a drink to help clean out her system. The drink is made from a mixture of corn and salt. In the rural areas of Peru, a mixture of tepid water with some salt in it can naturally bring on contractions and help to pull the placenta out. One teaspoon of vegetable oil will also aid in pulling the placenta out. Lucy told me that it gives the woman the impulse to push. If the placenta does not come out, the woman is taken to the doctor. This can be a potentially serious complication. Although it is rare, some women die of this complication.

Under Peruvian custom, there is a period of time after labor that the woman is considered weak and fragile. Because of her fragile state she is bedridden for forty-days. During this time, family members and friends come to take care of her and the baby. Her only responsibility is to nurse the baby. It is also important during this time period that the woman refrains from sexual activity so that she does not get any type of infection. Some women will wait up to three months before having sex after birth. It is also important that the mother drinks chicken broth during this time period to prevent anemia and to gain strength.

If the woman does not take time in bed to regain her strength, she becomes at risk of Sobre Parto. Sobre Parto is a condition that is more common in the rural areas of Peru, where the luxury of rest after labor may not be practical. When the Sobre Parto happens the new mother can get fragile and weak. She may have headaches, fevers and infection. Hemorrhaging is also a big part of the Sobre Parto.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, my brief period of time in Peru has left me with more questions than conclusions. I am amazed by the vast possibilities of anthropological research. It is interesting to think that any paragraph from my broad summery on birth and pregnancy in Peru could be the source of a study all its own. I would hope that at some point this research can be continued.

For future research, there are several things that could be done to increase the quality of this report. The distribution questionnaires could provide a certain amount of empirical data and could also be used to gather information from a large number of subjects. In addition to this, a longer period of research would be helpful because it would allow the anthropologist to access information that normally would not be shared. It would also be useful in order to increase the opportunity for greater participant observation.

On a personal note, there are several things I would choose to change before trying to conduct this type of research again. One problem I encountered was that I found it difficult to conduct research in a foreign language that I am not proficient with. For this reason, I would never do any in-depth study of another culture without becoming fluent in the language of the culture that I wish study. I also felt restricted in terms of the amount of time I had to devote to the project. Shortly into my project it became apparent that quality anthropological research requires large chunks of time. I began my research hoping to draw meaningful conclusions about a culture that I am still fairly ignorant about. What I left with was a better understanding of myself, and a thirst to learn more.

I hope that in the future further research can be done about pregnancy and childbirth in Peru. There is a need for women worldwide to share their stories and support one another. Extensive research still needs to be done, as I believe that the study of women is generally underrepresented in the anthropological record. The birthing rituals and practices that I have been able to learn about in this short period of time propose possible solutions to many of the difficulties faced by women worldwide. One wonders at the possibility of other invaluable information that could be gathered if this investigation was given the proper resources in terms of time, money, and attention.