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Far From the Home I Love

Pregnancy and Childbirth Around the World

Finding out you're pregnant is one of the most exciting moments in a woman's life. But for women who find themselves pregnant far from their families – and the familiar — the joy and anticipation they feel can be tempered by an overwhelming sense of fear. What to expect when you have no idea what to expect? Women who experience pregnancy and childbirth in faraway places have a lot to say on the subject.

Bridgette Moore used the Internet to supplement her health care during her pregnancy in Taipei, Taiwan. "I was part of an e-mail list of moms with kids born in February, 1998. We were all going through the same thing at the same time." Moore is still in regular contact with her email group – they have plans to meet later this year in Chicago.

Moore says her birth experience was similar to what she would have expected in the United States – with a few small exceptions. "Only three percent of Chinese women breastfeed, and even then they supplement with formula. I had to educate every nurse that Faith was getting enough to eat. I got called each night to feed her in the nursery. The call was always the same: 'This is baby room. Baby hungry.'"

Moore had a hard time making herself understood – she forgot her Chinese/English dictionary at home. "The epidural didn't take," she recalls. "I would say, 'It hurts,' and the nurses would say, 'You no pain. You have painless.'"

According to traditional Chinese belief, mothers need a month of bed rest to recover after childbirth. "No showers, no baths, because the mother may catch a cold and all the energy she has left will be washed away," Moore explains. Despite strict warnings, she took a shower after three days, "but the nurses already knew they were dealing with a crazy foreigner."