Reconstructing Traditional Delivery and Midwifery Process: A Qualitative Study in Sardasht District

This paper deals with the process of delivery and childbirth in traditional communities prior the entrance of modern health and medicine. It tries to investigate the role of attendants in this process too. In an ethnographic study we refer to still alive traditional attendants as well as other elderly women to provide a clear picture of traditional delivery process and attendant role. For collecting data, 46 in-depth interviews have been conducted, then manuscripts were classified according to pre-delivery, delivery and post-delivery stages. Traditional deliveries took place in domestic context with least medical equipment and banal tools. Attendants provided the pregnant women with some behavioral, nutritional and sometimes curing advices. At the time of difficult deliveries, they employed purely local, experience-based techniques as well as spiritual ways. Different domestic, biological and cultural factors could have been caused infant/fetus or maternal death. The finding narrates some traditionally unknown causes of deaths of mothers or fetus. At the post-delivery stage, the attendant’s cares had substantial impact on mother and child health. All the attendant’s conducts and the deilivery and childberiang process were culturally mediated.