Many Indigenous Mothers Must Travel Hundreds of Kilometres to Give Birth. Meet the Women Changing That – The Walrus

A resurgence of traditional midwifery is bringing deliveries back home

IMAGINE YOU ARE a pregnant Canadian, close to your due date, when the government tells you to fly to Denmark to deliver your baby. After all, Denmark has better outcomes for birthing parents and infants compared to Canada. But you will have to give birth alone, far from your community and family, in a place with unfamiliar food and a language you do not speak. Supposedly, this is in the best interests of you and the baby, despite the disruption, the isolation, and the incredible expense. Refusing this plan, you are told, is selfish and ignorant—even though there’s no evidence to support its promised benefits. This thought experiment has been the reality for Indigenous birthers across Canada for decades.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, Indigenous babies were usually delivered by traditional midwives, and birthing parents were surrounded by community and tradition. Nearly every community had someone who caught babies—and that person also led ceremonies, cared for families, and guided others through important transitions in life and death. But then the Canadian government implemented a birth evacuation policy, which forced Indigenous birthers in rural and remote communities to leave, to travel, often alone, often hundreds of kilometres from home, to give birth in a hospital—far from extended family, language, and culture. All the while, assimilation policies, including residential schools, were fracturing the intergenerational relationships through which knowledge about pregnancy, birth, and parenting was handed down.

Read More: https://thewalrus.ca/indigenous-midwives/