MODERN AND TRADITIONAL OXYTOCICS IN GESTATIONAL PERIOD MANAGEMENT AMONG BAMOUN IN WEST CAMEROON: A PARADOX OF “INCOMPATIBILITY”

Abstract

The management of obstetric health is a delicate issue in Cameroon where the use of obstetric care takes into consideration several parameters such as socio-cultural, economic, and medical ethical constraints. As a result, populations are divided between the biomedical obstetric care system and the traditional one. This implies a diversification of therapeutic routes. As a result of advances in biomedicine and obstetrics, the biomedical system has taken over the monopoly of expertise in this field. However, through traditional methods, means, and elements of nature, people in developing countries are investing in the quest for health. The field of obstetrics is no exception to this approach whereby Africans, especially the Bamoun, seek solutions to their health problems. However, this approach is, according to the biomedical obstetric system, its prerogative, because it is the only one to hold the secrets and cogs of a sensitive and complex practice. Faced with two «incompatible» medical cultures that still covet the same object that is obstetric health, can we not think of a possible complementarity between these two systems of care? Through a study on the use of modern and/or traditional oxytocics during the gestational period in Bamoun women from West Cameroon, this work aims to analyse the reasons for the «supposed» incompatibility between these two care systems and highlight the failures or limitations and benefits of oxytocics on a case-by-case basis in these care systems. This article is also interested in exploring the possibility of complementarity between these two care systems in terms of gestational period management from modern and traditional oxytocics. For this reason, individual interviews have been used to collect data in certain rural and urban areas of the Bamoun region to enable the objectives to be achieved.