Midwives, A Crucial Part Of Caring For The Women Of Mexico

This is not the usual story about motherhood. It is a story about high infant and maternal mortality among indigenous women and their newborns. Part of this story is about how young women living in desperate situations learn to deal with those situations by helping others.

Who are the 'indigenous' in Mexico? Six million people, descendents of America's original inhabitants who speak 61 indigenous languages, most of which do not include Spanish or English.

In Mexico indigenous women die from pregnancy and birth related causes at three times the rate of non-indigenous women. Recently, newborn and maternal deaths among this group have received attention at the highest levels within the Mexican government, thanks in part to the NGO, CASA, which operates a training school supported by Johnson & Johnson in which women can become midwives.

As part of this attention, the federal government has, for the first time in 2011, provided funding to eight of Mexico's 32 states to hire midwives to serve indigenous communities. The federal government also approved funds for scholarships for women who want to go to the CASA midwifery school -- the only government accredited midwifery school with its own teaching hospital in the country. A CASA graduate was hired by the Health Ministry's National Center for Gender Equity and Reproductive Health to promote professional midwifery throughout the country. National legislation passed the Senate to further women's rights, and Mexico´s National Public Health Institute published a book of studies that recommends that the country open more midwifery schools using CASA´s curriculum.

Successes such as these do not come overnight and happen as a result of sacrifices made by many. There are frequently untold stories such as the one CASA co-founder Nadine Goodman shared with me the other day -- an amazing story about a remarkable young woman who is currently studying midwifery at CASA.

Nadine explained how she recently boarded a bus at one in the morning to make a trip to Veracruz, a state that is struggling to lower its extremely high maternal mortality rate. Veracruz's Health Minister requested a presentation about CASA's midwifery model. Graduates from CASA are working in Veracruz and the government is very pleased with their work, leading to interest in Veracruz starting its own midwifery school with technical assistance from CASA.

Nadine's visit to Veracruz went well. As she was about to leave, one of the government hosts inquired about one of the midwifery students at CASA who is from Veracruz. It turned out that this colleague had worked diligently with Maribel Hernandez, the Administrator of the CASA Midwifery School, to help this particular midwifery student weave her way through the application and scholarship processes. Applying to a school far away from your home can be a daunting experience for many of the young Mexican women who come to CASA, and it is common for the CASA Midwifery School staff, especially Maribel, to band together with government representatives and other groups to help an aspiring student. In this case the young woman had been brutally beaten by her husband and in turn kept in intensive care for seven days. It was not the first time her husband had beaten her. He did not want her to go to midwifery school.

Two weeks after Nadine's visit to Veracruz, health officials from Veracruz traveled seven hours by car to San Miguel to visit the CASA school where they were greeted by the same 17-year old student from Veracruz mentioned above. The student eloquently and passionately spoke about how she loves being a midwifery student at CASA, explaining why new midwifery schools are needed throughout Mexico to produce the critical mass of midwives that Mexico needs and to give young women the opportunities they deserve to study, work and contribute to their communities.

It would be enough to say that CASA's midwifery school is producing desperately needed midwives who are saving the lives of pregnant and birthing women. It turns out the school is doing even more...

For more information about how you can help please see www.casa.org.mx and contact Ana Marquez, CASA Development Coordinator at [e-mail] or U.S. phone [phone] or Mexican phone [phone] or CASA's General Advisor, Nadine Goodman at [e-mail] or U.S. phone [phone].

 

Comments

[TheGreatRenewal]

06:50 PM on 04/05/2012

We have to take another crucial step .... skills for ourselves as pregnant/birthing women and our families.

Childbirth has always been very mysterious. You never know what your birth will be like so there's never been a thought that we can actually prepare our human pregnant body to become a birthing body. We share the exact same human body.

Having a midwife is great ... being skilled as a birthing woman is something else. Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method® just received The Reader's Choice Award for The Best Pregnancy Resource 2012. This is a skills-based approach to all pregnancies and every birth.

Pregnant women can learn to open their body, create space, create mobility in their pelvis and soften inside. Pregnant women and their families can learn the birth and birth coaching skills so together they can work with their baby's efforts to be born. Up till now we never even considered that all of us can share common skills around this universal experience of pregnancy and childbirth.

We must grow a skilled birthing population globally then we, birthing mothers, will be part of reducing the risks to ourselves and babies.

We are a New Zealand Charitable Trust and would like to work with anyone/organization to help us get these skills into simple resources to be given to women everywhere. We are adults and quite capable of self-learning birth skills.

please contact me, Director for Common Knowledge Trust .... wintergreenATbirthingbetter.com

[insanityfollows]

07:45 PM on 03/07/2012

And contraception's use and role are under attack. Fortunately, not in Mexico, it seems, where the need remains great, and I'm so glad to see the expansion of midwifery there. That will save many lives, mother and child.

[Crisdean Wulver]

01:46 AM on 03/13/2012

Back when humans lived in tribes and were closer to nature, midwifery was as common as air. But as people became "civilized" (meaning, essentially, urbanized and specialized) many of these ancient traditions started getting lost.

I saw something about twenty years ago, about a doctor----who worked for the HMO, Kaiser Permanente, oddly enough----brought back a technique of turning a breech baby around so that it could be delivered normally. It involved putting a slippery substance on the mother's belly and massaging it until the baby got into the proper position. I have little doubt that this was part of ancient midwife knowledge, because it's common sense.

[Crisdean Wulver]

03:02 PM on 03/07/2012

I think this article is a good reminder that pregnancy has always had more dire consequences for women than for men.

Getting pregnant always came with the risk of death.

It may have been a small risk, but it was always there. That's why I think it's hard for a man, any man, to fully appreciate reproductive rights from a woman's perspective. Men have don't have to carry the baby for nine months. Men don't run the risk of dying.

And men should consider this when making policy decisions that affect women's productive rights.

But they seldom do.

[setanta54]

01:19 AM on 03/13/2012

excuse me but it still takes TWO for procreation and maybe this is WHY the majority are consenting ADULTS ? that know what they are doing ? and that applies to the use of contraception or not .

[Crisdean Wulver]

11:58 AM on 03/13/2012

It reminds me of that line from the movie The Right Stuff. One of the wives of the astronauts was talking about her college girl friends, who were complaining about the dog-eat-dog world of Wall Street and all the pressure it put on their husbands and their families.

Then she said she just had to laugh, and said, "I wonder how they would feel if every time their husband went into a board meeting there was a one in five chance he wouldn't come out alive.

This may be overstating it when it comes to numbers, but it's not overstating the fact that death has always been a risk of pregnancy for women. It's not true of men. So women have always had to put their lives on the line in the interest of procreation. And I don't think men in general fully appreciate that.