In the United States and in many other countries when women get pregnant, they often talk about the immediate bond between mother and her unborn child. However, in other countries and cultures, women don't feel a bond with their unborn children until the child is born healthy, happy and grows to a certain age. There are people who think the issue of bonding with your child is culturally based and others argue that this bonding takes place naturally. While Nancy Scheper-Hughs argues that mother-infant bonding is culturally based and occurs over a period of time, Lucinda J. Peach refutes this argument by saying that there is an immediate and natural bond between a mother and unborn child. I will compare and contrast these two articles and their arguments of whether the mother-infant bond is culturally based or takes place naturally.
There are many differences between the issue of mother-infant bonding in Nancy Scheper-Hughs article and in the article written by Margaret Ehrenberg. One of the main differences is how the mother-infant bond is viewed between the two. In Nancy Scheper-Hugh's article called Lifeboat Ethics: Mother Love and Child Death in Northeast Brazil, she views the mother-infant bond as solely based on the culture. In this article, when women's babies die, either at childbirth or shortly there after, the mothers do not weep for them. Scheper-Hughs says "It would be wrong, a sign of a lack of faith, to weep for a child with such good fortune" (Brettell & Sargent 2005 pg.36). This "good fortune" refers to a saint coming and taking the child up to Heaven. The mother-infant bond in this culture is only evident when the infant either grows up to be a certain age or when the baby is born healthy and is a "fair and robust li ...