In this small room, shelves spill over with herbs ranging from “patacun yuyo,” a mountain weed that they believe reduces abdominal pain, to “hojas de higo,” fig leaves used to clean and numb the vaginal area during birth and to enhance muscular activity.Three traditional midwives take turns concocting teas and washing waters for the mother, who starts to ingest these special infusions when the cervix reaches a dilation of three to four inches.
Midwives here massage and bathe the mother until the baby is born. A “yatchak”–literally “he who knows”–oversees the spiritual dimension of this process and ensures it follows ancestral cosmic laws. This Andean shaman welcomes the child into the world beating five stones on the door frame–representing the fingers of a hand–in the maternity ward.
“Every detail of the delivery is important to us,” said yatchak Huillka Pukara Pakhsi, a name that means “moon force” in Kichwa. “It is a road map revealing the child’s nature, foreshadowing its life. This hospital room becomes a sacred place, an altar, because this is where life begins.”
This beautiful ritual to celebrate the beginning of life not only affirms the significance of caring for the mother but has “helped reduce Caesarean sections from 18 to 8 percent at the hospital.” and “The hospital has an infant mortality of 7.8 per 1,000 live births, less than half the national average, which stands at 19 per 1,000.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if western hospitals could be this attentive to birthing women? And if everyone recognized birth as the time when life begins?
Beautiful! Hell yes, I wish they’d do this. My stupid hospital doesn’t even have bathtubs to labour in. It’s cold (or too hot!) and clinical, and so impersonal. I’m going in for a c-section in two weeks, and honestly, given how shitty it was last time, I feel like I’m getting a better deal with the section. How perfectly awful is that?
At least I wasn’t pressured to choose the section.
This post really hit me, i’ve thought a lot about the affects religion has had on women and their reproductive rights. At FEM08 Greer stated that mothers need to be celebrated and this accurately highlights societies inability to genuinely celebrate and cherish the mother.
Why?
Because in our society, which it cannot be denied, is currently based on Christian ‘vaules’, life doesn’t start at birth- it starts at conception. If life started at birth the mother would be held up above all, as the giver and creator of life. Instead, the father is brought in and it becomes a two person ‘job’ where the woman sterotypically takes a passive ‘backseat’ and the birth is just another process down the line of life, instead of the ultimate start to live.
Hmm.. something to think about.
Lucy