Dais and Doctors

Dais and Doctors

I was visiting this mom, who had a caesarean section. According to her doula, the baby might have been in the wrong position. (She is doing fine now)

I knew that dais would re-position the baby using their hands. Moving them back and forth on the mother’s tummy. This was something the obstetricians would never do. So I began to think about things that obstetricians never do, but dais do. I asked my birth buddy friends to generate questions about  things that doctors don’t do and dais or traditional Indian midwives do.

A dai explaining how she handles (literally with hands) labour

Here are a few of their questions that I will go into in later posts.

1. The mom hasn’t gone into labour and is way past her due date - say 41/42 weeks. I know that the dais do not estimate due date as doctors but what would be the signs to say that this baby needs to come soon and how would she aid the start of labour for the mom.

2. If the mom's water breaks and has been leaking for hours/days with no contractions. What would the dai do? How long would they wait and when and what would be the ways to support that labour.

3. If the water is greenish/brownish (baby has passes meconium in the womb) - what would be the response and the actions if any.

Healing the vagina after the birth

A woman healing herself with fire post-birth from a sculpture in Konark at Puri in Orissa (thanks to Stella Dupuis). We at Jeeva Research Project found that women still used fire as fumigation post birth. One dai or traditional midwife reported the following.

In the fire we toss dry neem leaves, garlic peels, ajwain (carom seeds), raagi (millet). She should spread her sari wide, with her legs apart with the fire placed between them. The smoke and heat should go into the lower part of her body. It relieves pain and if she takes the warmth to her legs, hand and face--then her face will not swell and she will not catch cold. (Husainabi from Karnataka)

Man caring for woman/mother

Thanks Stella, for this photo from Madurai, of a nurturing man and a pregnant (birthing?) woman.

Ritual and "symbol" in the Indic context

This post discusses the complexity of ritual, and how the term “symbol” does not do justice to ritual in Indic cultures. I believe it is inappropriate to use the word symbol because it radically separates the symbol from that which it  stands for. No example demonstrates simultaneity (rather than symbol) better than the idea that women and the earth share “fertility” and are thus ‘dirty’. Woman is not a symbol of the earth, nor is the earth a symbol of woman….but both share fertility.  To illustrate this point and explain the importance of cultural rituals around childbirth, I’ve compiled examples of this phenomena throughout India.

Himachal— A complex phenomenon of this region is ‘ritual pollution’, which declares that women should not go into the kitchen nor temples, mosques etc. during the postpartum period because they are ‘polluted’ or jooth. (this is throughout India, not just HP)

Jeeva research in Himachal Pradesh interviewed women postpartum in one village. Their explanation of notions of ‘pollution’ show that it is not just an individual phenomenon but is shared by the earth:

-   In our place we do not go to the fields to work after the prasoota (birth) was done. We consider it as jooth. That is why we have to inform all the villagers by announcing it to them.  (Rani Devi)

-   After the birth is done then we consider a jooth of 3 days in the village. No one from the village goes to the field to work. On the 3rd day after all the cleaning is done they go back in the fields to work. (Sapna Devi)

Karnataka

Similarly in Belary District we heard that Hole Puja is not just worship, but also is a prayer to reduce the postpartum woman’s bleeding. (This is another reason women postpartum and menstruating are ‘dirty’—what is normally inside the body is now outside.) Women postpartum relate:

After delivery on the third day they do hole puje (they make a puja to reduce her dirt or bleeding). Then they do Gangamma's puja. They put chuttige (poking with the hot needle). They keep sickle, neem leaves and make puja. They make mutton curry and share it. (Durgama)

On the third day, they do hole puje (to stop bleeding). On that day, they keep kudugolu (sickle) and neem leaves and do puja. (Shanta)

The sickle was once used to cut the umbillical cord and now is used ritually along with neem leaves.

    Maharashtra

In this Pavra and Bhil adivasi (tribal) area both female and male dais (huarki and huarku) handle childbirths. Burdvu (traditional healers or shamans) are specialists in casting the daana (seeds, usually of jowar). This ritual is of major importance here, both as an invocation to deities as well as to divine the source and solution to any problem during labour, birth or afterwards. Postpartum women reported putting the seeds or daana (used in the rite) in the river.

We did the baara (lifting of pollution) ritual after 7 days.. My mother-in-law (a dai) put the daana near the stand for drinking water and broke the nail of a little chick and put a mark of blood on the baby’s forehead.

The huaarki  (dai) kept the seeds of black gram, jowar, small millets and okra. She wound a thread around a cow dung cake and kept it near the water stand. Then she broke the nail of a little chick and put a mark with its blood on the baby. She gave me the daane used in the puja and we gave that chick to the huaarki. On the 9^th day when they sent me to the river to bathe, first I released those daane in the river and then I took my bath.

Jharkhand

              In this area of Jharkhand, as in many other places, bathing is an intrinsic part of cleansing or purifying the mother post-partum.

              

On naarato (9^thday) the Dai bathed me and my baby. The naai (barber) was called and he cut everyone's nails. On the same day oil was given to villagers. Then on ekoosa (21^stday) she bathed both of us again and performed the soshthi puja with us in front of the banyan tree.  

On the 7^thday after prasov (birth) to purify the body they bathed me and the baby. On the 40^th day we called the maulana to perform the milaad and we kept the baby's name. All who had come were given food.