Due Friday 3/20
Mini Paper 6

Write a 5 – 6 page (10 paragraph), double-spaced paper on the comparative and cross-cultural nature of childbirth across the globe specifically around three issues:
1. socio-economic issues/poverty/lack of money or resources
2. cultures of birth (customs/cultural practices and preferences)
3. the birthing mother and physician/nurse/midwife/doula
I have provided some questions for you to consider as you organize your thoughts and your paper. These questions should be used as guiding ideas to frame your essay. Do not just answer the topic questions listed below one by one. You are encouraged to add other issues that you deem important in your essay apart from the questions/issues I have suggested.
Guiding Questions:
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· As someone born and brought up in the US, what was your idea about childbirth? What kinds of representations of childbirth have you seen in films, advertisements, and magazines? How do the pregnancies and childbirth in the films Business of Being Born (set in the US) and the other documentaries (which focus on childbirth in certain poor nations of Africa or Asia) differ from common ideas about childbirth?
· How do you think socio-economic resources impact the experience of childbirth? Do all women have the same kind of resources that we take for granted here in the US? Do all women here in the US have the same kind of access to these resources?
· Do you think childbirth in the US or the western world is more developed? Do you think technology is a guarantee to women having more say in their birthing experiences? To what extent do you think physicians and nurses in the US offer ways for women to express their fears and anxieties during the most painful process of their lives?
· Do you think women in poorer nations have no voice in their child birthing processes? Do you think midwives and physicians in underdeveloped nations help women to express their emotions despite meagre medical infrastructure?
· What kinds of agency/voices do you think women should have when they give birth?
Paper Requirements
· Mini-paper should be a minimum of 5 – 6 pages (10 paragraphs) doubled spaced. One paragraph as an introduction and three (3) paragraphs each on each of the three (3) issues underlined above).
· The essay should have a title that reflects your opinion/view of the different cultures of childbirth in the developed versus the underdeveloped or developing world.
· For each of the themes underlined above, cite examples from the documentary films in an attempt to highlight some of the different ways of experiencing childbirth by women.
· Cite your sources using APA formatting.