It is difficult to think about this word without first considering the enormity of it’s meaning. Without birth we would not exist. It is a fundamental starting point of life which implies creativity and the beginning of something positive.
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The birth of a child is without a doubt one of the most inspiring facts of life and one which allows us to continue into the future. Not only is this word extremely meaningful when used alone, it also has several collocations which expand its significance. I have chosen just a few to explore briefly here.
This is more than just a piece of paper. It is an integral part of our identity. It gives us a sense of belonging and can be a source of pride. Having dual nationality, and so having two birth certificates, can link you emotionally to both countries. Most certificates have the name of both the father and the mother although it is possible that the one or other of the biological parents decides to remain anonymous.
In England there is a charity called the fpa (Family Planning Association). Their objective is to advise and provide assistance to people, young and old, who need help with birth control or sexual health. One of their aims is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and trying to limit the number of teenage pregnancies through communication and making guidance available to young people in schools.
It depends on what family you come from but many families celebrate birthdays in a big way. In our family when we were younger we always had a homemade cake covered with candles. We don’t have saint’s days in England like they do in France so our birthday is the one day that is focused on us. It is the day when we are really allowed to self-indulge. Nowadays most people receive cards and presents and organise a party or celebrate their birthday with friends in other ways. Mine is the 29th November if you want to make a note in your diaries!
Nowadays the father-to-be is often in the delivery room assisting his wife while she gives birth. This is not however always the case and sometimes there is a third or even fourth person who accompanies the mother-to-be through labour, both physically and emotionally. Around the world there are mid-wives and other professional birthing assistants who play an important role in the birth process.
Famous birthplaces include the house where Shakespeare was born and lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. In the South of Wales you can find the birth places of many famous singers, actors and poets such as Tom Jones, Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), and Dylan Thomas. In London and other big cities in England you can often see plaques on the outside wall of buildings stating that a famous person was born there.
This is a very Anglo-Saxon concept. When asked what her birth plan was a French friend of mine replied that she planned to travel to her to her parents’ village a month before the birth. It wasn’t quite the answer that the doctor was expecting. A birth plan is what the expectant parents write and present to the delivery team explaining how they would like the birth of their child to be carried out. This can include details such as having the lights turned down low, music playing in the background to more medical aspects such as refusal of pain relief medication. However, what is written in a birth plan and what happens in reality are often two contrasting stories.
At the moment Japan has the lowest birth rate with the highest life expectancy in the world which could mean that in years to come the ageing population may not have enough people working to pay for their pension funds. China’s birth rate is high and remains a potential source of financial problems for the country. This explains the government’s efforts, dating from the 1990s, to restrict how many children people have so that they can keep the birth rate down.
In China the mother and baby stay at home for the first month without washing to preserve the purity of the child and to protect him from the outside world. Elsewhere, Hindu rituals include feeding a newborn baby honey and whispering the name of God into his ear. They also attach a lot of importance to the baby naming ceremony. A strange ritual that apparently takes place in India during a difficult childbirth is to give the woman a glass of water to drink in which her mother-in-law has put her toes! This is supposed to speed up the birth.
The day we are born corresponds to a zodiac sign and supposedly a colour, number and precious stone all of which are meant to reveal something about our personality. With my birthday in November my birth stone is topaz which, according to Polish tradition, signifies fidelity. Our zodiac sign is determined by the rotation of the earth and I am a Sagittarius and am therefore supposed to be frank, honest and am meant to like travelling. Most of this is true!
This is for me the most significant word association. Having been through this experience twice I can easily say that it is one of the most amazing moments of my life. The rush of emotion when you are presented with your newborn baby is indescribable. Many years ago giving birth was a perilous event for women. Nowadays the risks are much more limited and it is a wonderful event.
According to some religions such as Buddhism, when we die it is only our physical body that ceases to exist. Many people believe that our soul continues to live on and will be reincarnated in the form of an animal or another human being. This makes life a cyclical process rather than a linear one.
The oldest woman to have given birth is Romanian Adriana at 67. She had twin girls in January of this year, although one of them was sadly too small to survive. The other baby girl is thankfully doing well in hospital. The number of babies born at the same time can also reach amazing figures. An Australian woman gave birth to nine children in 1971. The size of a new-born baby can also be sometimes fairly alarming. Again at the start of the year a woman in Brazil gave birth to a huge baby weighing the same size as an average six-month-old baby.
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Are these things the same or different in your country/culture? What do you thing of this article? Send us your texts and/or opinions.
Ludovica Chiavaccini writes “I actually agree with the author of this article, since it’s not easy to give an unequivocal sense to the word BIRTH, as there are so many different meanings it may acquire. For sure, there’s a positive intrinsic meaning in this word, something connected to life, hope and the soul. The birth of an idea is the launching of a new concept, a discovery that may change our common belief. When thinking about giving birth, we have in mind the beginning, the start of everything: it could be the birth of a baby or it may acquire a more philosophical and romantic meaning extended to nature, the earth and finally to the whole universe.
I guess most of the subject has been well and largely illustrated in the article, so there’s nothing to add regarding the birth-certificate or birth-stones or even birth-places. In Italy things are very similar to Britain. Usually women have their children in a hospital; today it’s quite rare to have a baby at home if there is no specific reason to do that, firstly because of health security and hygiene. There’s always one or more midwives assisting the doctor on call (not many births are planned, but most of them arrive “on emergency”). Even if most of the time there are no problems during the delivery, sometimes a caesarean is required. In my country, planned caesareans are not allowed anymore, except for cases where there is a known weakness or physical handicap of the mother. Some women like to plan their delivery in detail, for instance some choose to have the baby in water, because it seems to be “more natural and less traumatic”, or to have music (Mozart is the first choice since it has been claimed to increase intelligence).
Another big chapter is that of the birth rate and its consequential birth control. In Italy as well as in Europe the birth rate, after an all-time low in the last decades, is now slowly increasing again, but it still represents an issue. Actually there’s a big gap between our 0% rate and the excess of births registered in poorer countries in Asia or Africa. Some of these impute their economical problems to the high number of people to feed. In the early 1990s, China’s government planned systematic birth control, reducing to one, in cities, and two, in country villages, the number of children allowed per family. This policy brought to a disparity between sexes, with a 1:1,5 ratio between males and females. I discovered only recently that abortion was not allowed in modern and multicultural countries such as Portugal, where there was a referendum recently. In Italy the legality of abortion has been recognized almost at the same time as divorce, in the 1970s. I’m not willing to argue the fairness of this procedure here, but, since abortion has always been required to end undesired pregnancies, everybody admitted that the law has saved many young women who risked their life during unsafe and odd home-made procedures. Several organisations and public infrastructures now help women to have their children without recognizing them, hoping that this could reduce the developing attitude to leave or sometimes even kill newborn babies.”
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Katerina Vladika writes “I’m from a small village in the northern part of Greece called Mesimeri. Here after birth the mother and child stay home for 40days.The baby isn't allowed to go out of the house and the mother is allowed to go out only during day time. Also visitors aren't allowed in the house after sunset. When the 40 -day period is over the mother takes the newborn baby to church to present it to God and both of them are blessed.”
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Maurizio writes “Here in Italy the birth of a child involves the whole family. Grandmothers knit pink or blue woollen caps and socks, and it is amazing to see how little they are. Grandfathers take care of grandchildren narrating old family stories. The father-to-be usually decorates the entire home with paper flowers and he gets the baby room ready too. All things must be ready when the little being arrives home. The mother-to-be is the queen of the house during those days and everyone is more kind and carefully attentive with her than ever.”
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Annie writes “In the Netherlands birthdays are celebrated in just the way they are in England. The father-to-be always assists the mother-to-be while she gives birth. There is also a professional midwife who is present during the birth process. At the moment of giving birth, the mother and father go to a hospital or they can choose to stay at home. But in that case the midwife also comes to their home. After a short stay in hospital (or not) there is help for mother and baby at home until the baby is about eight days old. After that period the parents have to take care of the baby on their own.”
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Wikipedia: Birth
HowStuffWorks: Birth
Birth stones
Family Planning Association
Re-birth
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