Perils to Pregnancies

2010

This article explores the local perceptions and practices surrounding pregnancy loss in Cameroon—a topic that has long been neglected in international reproductive health debates. Based on extended periods of anthropological fieldwork in an urban and a rural setting in the East province of the country, it shows the inherent ambiguities that underlie pregnancies and their perceived dangers. By situating meanings of pregnancy loss within the complex dynamics of marriage and kinship, pregnant bodies are argued to be social bodies—the actions and interpretations of which shift along with social situations. This approach not only forms an alternative to the current focus on the body politic in global discourses on fertility risks but also shows how conventional assumptions such as the rigid distinction between voluntary and involuntary pregnancy loss distort ambiguous daily life realities for Cameroonian women whose pregnancies are not being carried to term.

2013

Pregnancy losses are ambiguous affairs in East Cameroon. Childbearing is not always people's primary aim within their fragile sexual and marital relationships, and it is often unclear to outsiders whether a pregnancy interruption is intended or unintended. Drawing on 15 months of fieldwork, I explore the discursive strategies Gbigbil women deploy while navigating such ambiguities around interrupted pregnancies. Suffering is central to their defensive discourses. Depending on the stakes in their relationships, women foreground the notion of suffering either to portray themselves as moral and innocent-and maintain social status or raise support-or to allude to or acknowledge their intention to terminate a pregnancy. This dynamic deployment of a suffering discourse reveals the interconnections of unintended and intended pregnancy losses, and of suffering (associated especially with the former) and agency (often associated with the latter).

2013

Current international debates and policies on safe motherhood mainly propose biomedical interventions to reduce the risks during pregnancy and delivery. Yet, the conceptualisations of risk that underlie this framework may not correspond with local perceptions of reproductive dangers; consequently, hospital services may remain underutilised. Inspired by a growing body of anthropological literature exploring local fertility-related fears, and drawing on 15 months of fieldwork, this paper describes ideas about risky reproduction and practices of pregnancy protection in a Cameroonian village. It shows that social and supernatural threats to fertility are deemed more significant than the physical threats of fertility stressed at the (inter)national level. To protect their pregnancies from those social and supernatural influences, however, women take very physical measures. It is in this respect that biomedical interventions, physical in their very nature, do connect to local methods of pregnancy management. Furthermore, some pregnant women purposefully deploy hospital care in an attempt to reduce relational uncertainties. Explicit attention to the intersections of the social and the physical, and of the supernatural and the biomedical, furthers anthropological knowledge on fertility management and offers a starting point for more culturally sensitive safe motherhood interventions.

2014

political forces such as patriarchy, medicine, the state, and the global political economy. In their quest for understanding local and global 'politics of reproduction', some have turned their gaze towards the female body, considered to be a symbolic arena in which multi-level power relations are played out. These scholars have studied minute 'body politics' as reflections of wider 'reproductive politics'. This paper contributes to this growing field of study by adding a nuanced perspective of the role of the material body -rather than its symbolic representation -in such reproductive politics. Drawing on long-term fieldwork in eastern Cameroon, I describe how women's pregnancy pragmatics are informed by existing (bio)political forces on the one hand, and by their material bodies on the other. My detailed ethnographic material shows that, although forces like patriarchy, biomedicine, and the state shape the field within which Cameroonian women give meaning and direction to their reproduction, women themselves have considerable leeway to circumvent existing powers or to use them to their own advantage. I argue that this freedom is inherently connected to some bodily attributes of the reproductive process: the invisibility of early pregnancies grants women time and space for secret bodily interventions. At the same time, I show that the (unpredictable) body can also become a constraining force complicating women's reproductive navigation. Thus, by attending to both social and material dynamics, new light is shed on the arena of forces that impact upon reproductive practice, as well as on women's own agency within that arena.

2010

Studies on fertility in Africa have known a major paradigm shift when demographic concerns about 'overpopulation' came to be replaced by new ideas about reproductive health, rights, and choices during the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). Whereas this shift has allowed for more recognition of losses during pregnancy which had been virtually absent in previous demographic accounts of high fertility rates, the new discourse on rights and choices turns most of its attention to induced loss. Losses that spontaneously occur remain merely bound to the medical realm. Yet this paper shows that for many women in Africa and elsewhere, spontaneous pregnancy loss is a daily life reality which is inherently related to many social affairs, i.e. life and death, illness and suffering, marriage and kinship, the body and personhood. The rather reductionist biomedical discourse prevalent in the global health arena largely ignores these themes and social complexities e thus causing a gap between health policies and daily life realities for women. Drawing on eleven months of anthropological fieldwork in Cameroon in 2004 and 2008, this article explores the way in which socio-cultural insights could contribute to a better understanding of the experiences of women coping with pregnancy loss. The notions of 'vital conjunctures' and 'social bodies' will form an alternative approach to decision-making in case of reproductive mishaps. By applying these concepts to the personal story of an informant, their relevance and contribution to an interdisciplinary discussion on the topic become clear. The author argues for an integration of anthropological expertise in international reproductive health debates and explores how interdisciplinary work could make health policies on reproductive loss less marginal than is the case at present.

2014

This article explores the implications of reproductive mishaps for the life courses of women in eastern Cameroon. Based on 15 months of anthropological fi eldwork in a Gbigbil village, it describes local ideas about the expected unfolding of physical and social life trajectories, and the ways in which reproductive losses jeopardize these anticipated pathways. The life history of one informant shows that repeated child death can create a paradoxical situation in which a woman feels, at the same time, physically old and socially young, and that decisions for the future are informed by these contradictory sensations. The particular dynamics brought about by reproductive loss, then, challenge common views of the life course as a predefi ned pathway through consecutive and clearly defi ned life stages. Instead, they reveal that reproductive biographies are contingent and unpredictable, and that life stages may be paradoxically congruent rather than mutually exclusive. This, in turn, affects the way in which women give direction to their precarious reproductive pathways.

Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences, 2021

This paper examines the typology of childbirth of the Siendji Brong in Côte d'Ivoire, and highlights the associated psychosocial perceptions and medical practices that endanger maternal health. The research was qualitative, with an ethnographic scope. Data was collected from two focus groups, women over 50 and multiparas respectively, in order to identify the community's physiological criteria for classifying childbirth. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with traditional midwives and parturients' caregivers regarding psychosocial and medical aspects of childbirth. Through content analysis, informants' representations regarding childbirth and the mechanisms underlying the risks to maternal health were brought out. The community distinguished primarily between kou gariogo, "childbirth with complications", and kou tchrêssêguê, "uncomplicated childbirth". Risks to maternal health stemmed from ignorance of warning signs and the practice of home birth, both perpetuated by local obstetrical culture. Communication and education are needed for social change that would reduce reproductive health risks in the community.

2011

In the East Province of Cameroon, respectable womanhood has long been intrinsically related to ethics of production and reproduction: women attain social standing through productive work in the fields and through the reproduction of children – preferably within a marital setting. Yet, in the face of current alternative ‘horizons of honour’ such as schooling, employment or relationships with rich urban men, women's intentions with regard to marriage and motherhood acquire different meanings. On their pathways to urban forms of honour, formal engagements and childbearing are often postponed, while premarital sexual encounters proliferate. This paper explores the meanings of pregnancy within the context of these fragile relationships and women's urban aspirations; fertility will be shown to be a ‘bet’ that may either disrupt or stabilize urban affairs and ambitions. As such, pregnancies can be strategically anticipated and deliberately disclosed or unexpectedly encountered and secretly disrupted. This paper sheds light on women's strategies of concealment and disclosure of pregnancies and shows that these practices are often inspired by a notion of the ‘right timing’ of particular reproductive conjunctures – a notion that is of increasing relevance in current frames of female honour in Cameroon.Dans la Province de l'Est au Cameroun, la féminité respectable est depuis longtemps intrinsèquement liée à l'éthique de la production et de la reproduction: les femmes obtiennent un statut social en travaillant de manière efficace dans les champs et en faisant des enfants – les deux, de préférence dans le cadre du mariage. Pourtant, face aux alternatives existantes pour atteindre «les horizons de l'honneur», comme la scolarité, l'emploi ou des relations avec des hommes riches dans les villes, les intentions des femmes en ce qui concerne le mariage et la maternité prennent des significations différentes. Sur la voie des définitions urbaines de l'honneur, les fiançailles formelles et la maternité sont souvent différées, alors que les rencontres sexuelles pré-maritales sont de plus en plus fréquentes. Cet article explore les significations de la grossesse dans ces contextes de relations fragiles et d'aspirations liées à la ville des femmes; il sera montré que la grossesse est un «pari» pouvant, soit perturber, soit stabiliser les liaisons ou les «ambitions urbaines». À ce titre, les grossesses peuvent être stratégiquement anticipées et délibérément dévoilées, ou se présenter de manière inattendue et être secrètement interrompues. Cet article apporte un éclairage sur les stratégies employées par les femmes pour cacher et dévoiler leurs grossesses, et montre que ces pratiques s'inspirent souvent d'une notion de «moment adéquat» pour les circonstances reproductives particulières – une notion qui est d'une pertinence croissante au regard des conceptions actuelles de l'honneur féminin au Cameroun.En la provincia este de Camerún, la condición de mujer respetable ha estado durante mucho tiempo intrínsecamente relacionada con la ética de la producción y la reproducción: las mujeres alcanzan su posición social mediante el trabajo productivo en los campos y a través de la reproducción de hijos, ambos preferiblemente dentro del matrimonio. Sin embargo, ante los actuales ‘horizontes de honor’ alternativos tales como la escuela, el empleo o las relaciones con hombres ricos de la ciudad, las intenciones de las mujeres con respecto al matrimonio y la maternidad adquieren significados diferentes. En sus trayectorias hacia formas urbanas de honor, muchas veces se posponen los compromisos formales y la maternidad mientras que proliferan los encuentros sexuales antes del matrimonio. En este artículo analizamos los significados de embarazo en el contexto de estas relaciones frágiles y las aspiraciones urbanas de las mujeres; demostramos que la fertilidad es una ‘apuesta’ que puede perturbar o estabilizar las aventuras y ambiciones en un ámbito urbano. Por este motivo, es posible que las mujeres anticipen estratégicamente los embarazos y los revelen deliberadamente, o bien que se queden embarazadas de modo inesperado e interrumpan los embarazos en secreto. En este artículo arrojamos luz sobre las estrategias de las mujeres a la hora de ocultar o revelar los embarazos y mostramos que estas prácticas están muchas veces inspiradas por la noción del ‘momento correcto’ en las coyunturas de reproducción, una noción que es cada vez más relevante en los actuales esquemas del honor femenino en Camerún.

Himalayan Journal of Education and Literature, 2020

According to a recent study by WHO, it is stipulated that Cameroon, adolescents contribute to nearly 14% of all childbirths with 2.83% being girls under the age of 16. Yet, Adolescence is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood, and a period when people start to explore their sexuality. Consequently, this phenomenon puts these youngsters at risk of experiencing early pregnancies which they are usually considered to be physiologically ill-prepared to handle the physical, social, and mental changes associated with the pregnancy. Thus, this study identifies coping strategies which pregnant adolescents and mothers put up to cope with pregnancy outcomes. Individual interviews, life stories, freelisting and focus groups were conducted with adolescents at the Hôpital Catholique des Sœurs de Baleng with the themes: family and community support, individual approaches, socio-economic approaches and structural approaches. One significant finding of our study concerns the lost opportunity of participants to further their education. The inference of this study is to permit designed platforms to assist adolescents who do experience unintended pregnancies, including approaches to support pregnant and parenting adolescents to further their studies. Besides, Community systems should be built to support these adolescents to avoid instances of young women being kicked out of homes. In the cases where this cannot be avoided, temporary transitional homes should be implemented to house pregnant and/or parenting adolescents while preparing them to re-enter the society successfully. Keywords: Ethno, Perception, Adolescent Pregnancy, Early Motherhood

2019

Every woman has the right to safe motherhood. Over half of the global maternal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. In Guinea, where this study took place, a woman has a onein-26 chance of dying in childbirth, compared to a one-in-1,400 in a developed nation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the characteristics and the role of cultural beliefs and practices on a woman's birth process (conception to post-partum) among the Fulani in the Labé district of the Fouta Djallon region in Guinea using qualitative and participatory methods and collaborating with those most impacted by this issue, the women and their birth attendants. Three main themes were identified in the analysis process: maternal culture are, maternal care seeking, and miscommunication. An increased understanding of the role culture plays in birth and care choice for Fulani women could provide insight into more targeted and collaborative support and interventions for pregnant and post-partum women in the region and to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. Further research should focus on a three pronged approach of 1) use of culturally congruent communication models, 2) professional development for birth attendants and community health workers, and 3) inclusion of cultural knowledge and participatory approaches.