Middle Eastern Muslim women: Beliefs, behaviors, and expectations during childbirth

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the beliefs, behaviors and expectations of immigrant Middle Eastern Muslim women during childbirth in Western health care systems. Ethnographic methods of personal narratives, semi-structured interviews, and field notes were used with a purposeful sample of seven informants. The informants represented diverse ethnic backgrounds from the countries of Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Palestine-Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. The multiparous women were students or wives of students from a southwestern university. Five informants compared their Western birth experiences with births in their home country. Religious and cultural beliefs influenced the numerous behaviors and expectations identified during phases of childbirth: early labor, active labor, delivery, and post-delivery. The informants shared reasons for not attending childbirth classes, methods to increase labor, preferences for labor without intervention, rituals at birth, specific expectations of the nurses, and others. Recommendations for culturally and religiously congruent nursing care were offered.