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Article: Changes in childbirth knowledge.
- Article from:
- The American Indian Quarterly
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 University of Nebraska Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Previous to 1940 fewer than 10 percent of women living in the western Navajo reservation gave birth in a hospital, but by 1970 the percentage
of hospital births was nearly 100 percent (Kunitz 1976, 16). Leighton and Kluckholn stated in 1948, "Today an increasing number of Navajo women go to the Indian Service hospitals for delivery, but they still form a trifling portion of the total" (Leighton and Kluckholn 1948, 15). The greatest shift toward hospital birth occurred in the late 1950s. The implications of this shift are worth examining to increase understanding of Indigenous knowledge about childbirth and how it contributes to positive birth outcomes.
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