Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People

attitudes, still, in some of its
segments, we come across empirical
knowledge with which medicine
today also agrees. Namely, in
order to reduce the possibility of
damaging the vagina, rectum and
bladder, the pregnant women knew
that all positions, except the one
when the woman is lying down,
reduces the possibility for
episiotomy i.e. cutting the
perineum, which in the past could
have had serious consequences for
the health of the woman. Steiner
writes that the majority of
Bosnian women will not call a
doctor/male during birth, not even
during a complicated birth,
instead she will, during a
difficult birth, cut the perineum
herself is the bladder is pressed
or when the baby is in an
uncomfortable position, this is in
fact an impossible task for the
pregnant woman, therefore she
would let the woman assisting her
with birth perform the procedure
and even sow the wound.
Though it is obvious that such an
unreasonable and completely
irresponsible attitude towards her
own body and life is a by-product
of the conservative society, in
which the husband is the only man
which can see a woman's intimate
parts, he also jeopardized his
woman by exposing her to deadly
danger due to the lack of
professional medical assistance.
Data that most of the women that
assisted during birth had no
professional knowledge is ironical,
they based their skills on the
folk belief that a woman's womb
consists out of three parts; in
the first part are premature
births, in the second normal birth
and in the third post mature.
Similarly, it was believed that in
the womb itself there is a part
that creates male children (right
part) and left part which creates
female children.
Chronic lack of education but also
a dominant influence of religion,
which unquestionably creates a
conservative society which is
hostile towards any type of
progress and enlightenment,
stopped the Bosnian people from
advancing for centuries and
inflicted more harm than it did
good. Particularly alarming state
was among the youngest population,
namely as we can see, morbidity
and mortality of children in the
past in BiH was extremely high,
various causes contributed to this
fact from hypothermia and fever,
to various infectious diseases
such as diphtheria, scarlet fever,
smallpox (variola), measles, etc.
Besides this, women weren't in a
better position to whom every
birth was literally "one foot in
the grave" i.e. it exposed them to
Raif Esmerović
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Cult of fertility among the Bosnian People