Cultural Sensitiveness: Core of the Client Centered Care - Research Paper Example

Interestingly, the cultural beliefs and values even influence the health related care and intervention decisions of people from Hispanic ethnic background (Poma, 1987, p.929). Hence, it becomes important for people working in nursing profession to understand the cultural values, traditions and practices related to the aspect of health and medical care during life transition. Implication Of Cultural Traditions on Child Birth Birth of a child is one of the most important, exciting and blissful event in a woman’s life.

It is time when the woman and her family are full of hope, happiness and excitement. Hence, the whole family is emotionally involved with the woman who is pregnant, and tries to give her all the comfort and support that she needs. However, what really plays an important role in the developing phases of pregnancy, and the process of child birth, are the culture values, traditions and beliefs that are related to the process of child birth. Different cultures have different values, beliefs and practices associated with child birth.

Women see to it that every stage of the pregnancy is influenced by the traditional beliefs and understanding. Hence, it is very important for people working in the nursing profession to understand the beliefs and values of different cultures, as it is the knowledge of traditions and practices that can help them to provide the nursing care and interventions that are in sync with the cultural traditions of women undergoing the child birth process. Also, the faith in the health related traditional practices and methods help women to recover from the pregnancy and restore health easily.

In the United States, one of the cultural groups that follow the cultural tradition and practices very sincerely during the life transition is the cultural group of Hispanic background (Poma, 1987, p.929). Hence, it is extremely important for people in nursing profession to know and understand the cultural values of Hispanic people so that Hispanic women can feel ‘at home’, relaxed and safe while being cared by the nurses. Traditional Practices In Hispanic Culture The Hispanic women see medical interventions as disturbance to the normal and natural process of birth (Gallo, 2003, p.79). Women from Hispanic background are very particular about delivering the baby ‘naturally’ (Gallo, 2003, p.79). Study by Gallo (2003) found that cesarean was not a preferred option of Hispanic women as it was considered as an ‘abnormal’ delivery and they felt that it was an artificial, and not a natural way, to give birth to a baby (p.79). Hence, it was not a surprise to find that all the participants in the study had a vaginal delivery and had no complaints about the pain or discomfort felt through it (Gallo, 2003, p.79). This shows that cultural beliefs and religious teachings give lot of strength to Hispanic women experiencing child birth, and help them to bear the physical pain and discomfort by making them believe that it is one of the divine experiences in life.

This same spiritual and divine approach towards child birth is not found in women from Western culture. Moreover, the belief that child birth is a natural biological