Throughout the Alto, the topic of early infant mortality has become a topic of interest for Scheper-Hughes. She seems fascinated by how “a high expectancy of child death is a powerful shaper of maternal thinking and practice” and how this creates a detachment between mother and baby, which can be deathly (Scheper-Hughes, 1992: 340). Throughout the course of the book, the topic of a failure to mourn the death of the child is also brought up. The culture of the Alto and their own form of grieving is something that brought great fascination to Scheper-Hughes. While conditions of high fertility and high infant mortality prevail, the death of an Alto child has become the social norm and does not allow for full maternal acceptance or grieving. Scheper-Hughes begins her chapter (M) Other Love with what she …show more content…
The babies labeled as thrivers or keepers were nourished while the infants who were waiting to die were neglected and left in peace to accept the lord on their own. Scheper-Hughes labeled this the moral neglect effect. When you think of benign neglect, Scheuper-Hughes thinks of “unkempt and unsupervised, yet otherwise happy and carefree, older street urchins riding subway trains on hot summer nights in New York City” (1992: 343). In reality, the Alto version of this is mortally neglected infants and babies who, days before they die are “prettily kept: washed, such hair as they have combed and their emaciated little bodies dusted with sweet-smelling talcum powered” (1992: 343). When they do die, they are usually holding a candle as a way to light their way to the afterlife. Babies who enter this state of mortal neglect do not choose to do this on their own; their mothers deem them as not willing to live any longer. The babies have the ability to thrive if only given a small amount of medical