Child birth and rearing

[Aarlaya]

I've thought about this off and on recently; aren't you glad I'm sharing?
Good ole Manda'yaim strikes me as a rather poor planet: it's described as mostly rural with lots of farmers, there seems to be one major corporation and it's going to have more factory workers than office workers, and bounty hunting and mercenary work are high risk, high cost (what with gear and ammo and all) jobs that aren't necessarily steady. All this to say that I doubt Mandalore has too many OB/GYNs (or doctors of any kind), especially outside of the few major cities, and field medicine doesn't exactly translate to Labour and Delivery.
I think most babies are delivered by the family/friends/neighbours who know the most about having babies. If anything goes wrong somebody goes for a doctor, but mostly it's experience and nature. Those same family members/ friends/ neighbours can stick around right after the birth and help out until the mother is back on her feet (and, you know, have an excuse to be around a new baby).
On the same note with the lack of doctors, it's my personal headcanon that there's a fairly decent mortality rate among children and infants. When people are tiny and fargile it's very easy for things to go wrong, especially if the go to solutions are mostly folk medicine. As such, people begin counting children's ages when they reach about six standard years old (this bumps the terrifyingly low age of majority for Mando'ade from 13 to 19 standard years, which is far more reasonable imho, considering brain development) (it also makes Canderous around 69 years old in KOTOR, if anyone's counting).
Mandalorian parenting seems like a combination of highly affectionate and hands-off; children are loved but allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from it. It seems like a community effort to raise children. Children aren't viewed as a barrier to work but as a respectable form of work; they aren't scheduled in to people's lives, but included in every part.

Sorry for the long post and any stupid spelling mistakes, for I typed this on a cell phone. Your opinions are welcome.

[DiscWarrior]

This is an interesting thought to explore. Having had my two babies at home, my thoughts are as follows.

I imagine most of Mandalore would be small-ish farming villages with plenty of people filling roles everyday, and "Fighting" only occasionally. There would need to be people in many roles: farming, livestock raising, "smithing", equipment repair, clothing, selling general goods, weapons sales, medical, and many more. Of course, full-time Mercenaries and Bounty Hunters would exist, but somebody (the majority of the population) would have be home running the place.

I don't think a space faring society with electronic armor all over the place would have such a high infant mortality rate. There would be plenty of medics, doctors, surgeons, etc. around to help in many situations. My wife and I have had our two babies at home with the help of a mid-wife, and I delivered the second one alone (my wife helped ), and I would think anybody who had been around it a couple of times could handle it (complications aren't nearly as common as most tend to think). Especially a people who are so involved in combat. A culture as family oriented as the Mandalorians would certainly have people to fill a mid-wife/OB/GYN type role. Even with the variation is species/race/etc. They would still have access to the HoloNet to do any research needed to help. I really doubt that Mandalore is a smattering of random isolated huts with individual families in constant bushcraft/survival mode just hoping to eek by every season.

As for the child death rate, I would think the leading cause of that would be farm/transport equipment related accidents, and fairly low at that. Any Mando who is about to be, or suddenly finds them self as, a Buir would surely do their due diligence in what is required of raising a child. Even if it is of another race/species. We have to remember that Mando life is mostly rural, not primitive.

[Vlet Hansen]

I'd have to agree with Disc, especially about the mortality rate. We know of at least one doctor already (Wad'e) plus a veterinarian who acts like a doctor, and I suspect being a doctor is a pretty highly-regarded career choice (especially what with all the limbs getting removed and whatnot)

[Aarlaya]

(especially what with all the limbs getting removed and whatnot)

I love it.

While I understand your point of view, I still plan to keep my personal headcanon.

[Linebeck]

We also have to remember that a lot of children are war orphans. I don't really think this would make delivery doctors any worse at their jobs or harder to fine, but it's still probably not something you want to overlook.