Why Restoring Birth as Ceremony Can Promote Health Equity

Copyright

2022

Until the mid-20th century, birth for Latinx Indigenous peoples was an ancestral ceremony guided by midwives and traditional healers. This article discusses how communities of Latinx Indigenous peoples were culturally and spiritually separated—via the marginalization of traditional healers—from important health traditions, which caused suffering and illness. The article makes the case for reimplementation of birth as ceremony so babies can be born (and communities reborn) into an ancestral cultural ecology characterized by safety and cultural reclamation of healing.