PURPOSE:
Birth as a cultural experience: Pain, rituals, and knowledge through traditional midwifery .This qualitative research is based on over 20 years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in diverse global settings, including South Dakota, Madagascar, Alaska, The Gambia, India, Indonesia, the Muslim communities in the Middle East and Israel, and other places. Using participant observation and in-depth interviews, I studied traditional midwifery practices, beliefs, and embodied knowledge surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. The main objective is to preserve ancestral, embodied wisdom that is rapidly disappearing, and to explore its meaningful integration into modern maternity care. Recurring themes include cultural perceptions of pain, birth rituals as rites of passage, the role of social support in alleviating fear, faith in spiritual forces, and tensions between midwifery and medical models of care. These themes are deeply intertwined with women's lived experiences, community values, and intergenerational transmission of knowledge, offering a rich lens into how birth is shaped by both belief and environment.

DISCUSSION:
By recognizing the neratives of childbirth practises healthcare providers can promote more respectful, holistic, and culturally sensitive approaches that better meet the diverse needs of birthing people globally. I found it very important in labor room to speak to the woman in birth in her own language. Not only the speaking language like English or such, but in her out cultural language. To be aware of her own wishes, beliefs and background

EVIDENCE WHERE RELEVANT:
This research conclods theoretical frameworks. Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner’s rites of passage, Foucault’s concepts of biopower and medical authority, Michel Odent’s. Robbie Davis-Floyd’s analysis of technocratic versus holistic birth models. It is also supported by the ethnographic work of Birgitta Granqvist that made research at the beginning of the 20th century about the life among the Arabas at Palestine. alongside many other scholars in anthropology and medical humanities.

KEY MESSAGE:
Cultural safety