Mani's pregnancy

Mani's pregnancy

The Pregnancy

When Mani women find out they are expecting, their daily lives change.  When the woman is known to have conceived, she will not be allowed to engage in any type of heavy work. For the Mani people a pregnant woman is one of the most important to them.  During the time she is pregnant to the time for the delivery draw closers for the pregnant woman, the group’s care for her will intensify.

Delivery

When the women is close to the delivery of the new baby, right before the husband will go into the forest to look for a herb called “tum toke” that eases delivery. So the Mani people have some herbs that can help the women during the delivery. When the husband finds the “tum toke” he prepares and administers the herb on instructions from his wife.

At the same time, the women of the community sit near the hut where the pregnant woman lives, waiting and ready to help. Female elder of the band has the job of supervising the delivery and is generally the wife of the clan chief. So the pregnant women will have similar to a mid-wife to help during the birth of her baby.

When the delivery is underway, the woman in charge runs her hand over the stomach of the birthing woman. If the birth is difficult, she makes the mother-to-be chew more “tum toke” and sprinkles water on her while reciting incantations, until the baby is delivered.

 Occasionally, the husband helps in the delivery. When the baby has arrived, the senior woman uses a thin slice of bamboo to sever the umbilical cord and will hold the baby until his afterbirth has been disposed of. She also washes and dries the newborn baby. At the same time, it is the husband's duty to bury the afterbirth in a hole in the ground, ca. 50 cm (20 in.) deep, that he had dug up earlier for the purpose.

Nursing

When the mother has given birth the Mani believe that loss of blood from the delivery lowers the mother's body temperature. So right after giving birth, the mother has to remain by a fire. Her husband will tend to the fire. If the women would feel any type of pain, a coconut sized stone is fire-heated and wrapped in a piece of cloth. Then the stone will be placed on her body to warm the painful body parts.

Throughout the time when the mother is near the fire she has to nourish her blood. To do so, she has to take boiled herbs to control blood pressure. Her husband's duty to collect and store these herbs. Those herbs are  known as “ching dok diao, fai doen kong and khun senah” before delivery. The three herbs that are collected by the husband will be boiled together and drunk in hot water as a kind of tea.

During this time, after giving birth the mother is prevented from eating certain meats. Those meats are monkeys, langurs and baboons because these animals are considered to have a "hot" property that could increase her blood pressure. The new mother is allowed to eat fish and vegetables only. The time the mother will need to be near the fire is normally around about 7 days. When she is strong enough to travel, the family abandons camp and moves to a new place to live. It is believed that the blood shed during the delivery of a baby, after some days, will bring illness to people living near it.