ABSTRACT
The medicalization of human procreation is only one facet of a more general cultural transformation, namely the medicalization of life, which critical historians of Western societies have come to understand as a fairly permanent feature of industrialized societies. Few anthropologists have yet explored the medicalization of human procreation in Papua New Guinea, where it is occurring for the first time. In their social separation of gendered domains the Kwanga draw on a well-known cultural theme in Papua New Guinea, namely opposition and complementarity of the sexes. The Christian faith as taught by different denominations offered new answers to the fundamental questions that formed the core of the Kwanga rituals. Papua New Guinea, where 60 per cent of the women deliver at home, is believed to have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. It has been estimated that two to three women die every day in Papua New Guinea as a direct result of being pregnant.
