Week 5 Reflection: Medicalization

May 23

Who gets to define what progress is for others?

Suffering from the second highest maternity death rate in South America, the Peruvian government has implemented programs to modernize reproductive healthcare in rural areas of the Andes (Rivas, 2006). However well intentioned, such programs are often hours away, carry financial burden, and rarely respect the ancestral rituals of traditional childbirth. The result draws enforced but underfunded western maternal care which prioritizes chemical medication, into conflict with traditional herbalist medicine surrounded by the much stronger support of family. In Rivas’ documentary At Highest Risk, we meet two young pregnant women highly skeptical, but ultimately resigned to accept unfamiliar western medicine and government intervention upon traditional, highly intimate ritual (4:04 - 9:05 in Rivas, 2006).

Peruvian universal access to healthcare appears as a moral policy to tackle maternal mortality, but is applied unevenly on the ground. Decisions intersecting with traditional rites are removed from the intended benefits to others lacking a voice at the table (Castro, 2020). Such decisions foster resistance, rather than seek ways in which herbal and chemical, old and new might co-exist. The pursuit of health quotas asks for compromise in localized norms from those targeted with care in a system powered by good intentions (Joiner, 2024). It places government perspective between individual and state, something which continues to be highly contentious in western countries in relation to abortion rights. In Peru, reproductive care is situated within a strong community of support, but also on top of centuries of herbalist tradition which has bred communal confidence, but also, like their western counterparts, a deep skepticism and resistance to enforced removal of choice.

References:
Castro, A. (2020). Challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the health of women, children, and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unicef. [Digital File]. Retrieved from: https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1781220/files/133613889?module_item_id=29900572.
Joiner, M. (2024). Week 5 Required Lecture (38:48). [Digital File]. Retrieved from: https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1781220/pages/week-5-required-lecture-38-48?module_item_id=29900573.
Rivas, R. (2006). At Highest Risk: Maternal Health Care in the High Peruvian Andes. AlexanderStreet.com [Digital File]. Retrieved from: https://search-alexanderstreet-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C764470#/embed/object.