Midwifery Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period (including care of the newborn), in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many cou ...

is a women's profession that assists women from

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...

to newborn care. In some traditional Maya communities, a goddess of midwifery is invoked, and midwives are generally believed to be assigned their profession through signs and

visions Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

. In pre-Spanish Yucatan, the aged midwife goddess was called

Ixchel Ixchel or Ix Chel () is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar Goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture. In a similar parallel, she corresponds, to Toci Yoalticitl "Our Grandmother the Nocturnal Physician", an Aztec earth Godd ...

Childbirth Childbirth, also known as labour and delivery, is the ending of pregnancy where one or more babies exits the internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section. In 2019, there were about 140.11 million births globall ...

is the final rite of passage amongst the Maya that completes a girl's transition to womanhood. Many of the women who give birth in rural areas are treated by midwives who do not have any formal training but who are believed in

Maya religion The traditional Maya or Mayan religion of the extant Maya peoples of Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, and the Tabasco, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán states of Mexico is part of the wider frame of Mesoamerican religion. As is t ...

to have received training in dreams. The traditional birth attendants are known as ''comadronas'' or ''iyom kʼexelom'', and receive prestige for their practice. Midwives in Maya societies are responsible for the ''ajtuj'' ("pregnant woman") and her unborn child throughout the pregnancy as well as the week of bed rest following the birth. Unlike other societies in which individuals choose their occupational fields, the

Maya people The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical reg ...

believe that they receive a sacred calling from God through dreams which allows them to practice their destined occupation. The calling is divine and the midwife can communicate with the supernatural world. Though midwives are held at high prestige for their sacred position in society, these women are often also subject to resentments from their husbands and children as they must spend a great deal of time away from them in order to act as midwives. Midwives must abstain from sex, which sometimes creates difficulties with their husbands.

Sacred calling

In Maya society, it is believed that midwives receive their calling from God in a series of dreams. These visions are believed to often include subtle hints that a woman is destined to become a midwife and can include visions of

Saint Anne According to Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come o ...

who is the saint of all midwives. According to the Mayan religion, in addition to receiving dreams and visions, women also tend to find small items in paths that are symbols and objects related to midwifery. The objects are often small unusual stones that resemble the shape of a face, shells, marbles or broken fragments of archaeological figurines. Stones are often given sacred powers in the

and are believed to be sent from the spiritual world as a sign of one's calling to midwifery. It is also believed that some objects left in a midwife's path may also be the tools they need to perform parts of the birthing, i.e. a

penknife Penknife, or pen knife, is a British English term for a small folding knife. Today the word ''penknife'' is the common British English term for both a pocketknife, which can have single or multiple blades, and for multi-tools, with additional too ...

that is used to cut the

umbilical cord In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologic ...

. Women often consult shamans who explain their calling to them, and after the women accept that they are to become midwives, they are believed to receive another series of dreams and visions regarding the birthing practices they must follow. In addition to these special objects, and the repetitious dreams, it is believed that they may also be summoned to mountains or other sacred places where they may encounter supernatural beings. Mayans believe that women who ignore their calling often fall ill, and if doctors are unable to determine a diagnosis for their ailments, they may even face death. They also believe that they are told in their dreams by supernatural beings that they will receive gifts from the families of the children they deliver and that they must not be greedy because many will give what they have it must be accepted with a goodness of heart.

Responsibilities

Midwives are responsible for the pregnant women during their pregnancies without any formal training or learning except for what they believe they receive from their dreams. These dreams are believed to contain visions from the spirits on how to properly examine women,

massage Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In Eu ...

a woman, feel for the position of the fetus, measure dilation, cut the umbilical cord, how to pray and how to foretell a child's future by the markings on its umbilical cord. Midwives believe that in these visions they also learn to identify problems that can pose a threat for a healthy delivery and transport those women to nearby clinics and hospitals. Midwives are summoned around the third to fifth month of pregnancy and visit at monthly intervals for prenatal care, until the final month of pregnancy when they begin visiting on a weekly basis. The prenatal care provided by midwives includes periodic massages, examinations, attending the delivery and tending to both new mother and child following the birth in the week of bed rest.

Signs at birth

There are many things that the Mayans believe can be interpreted when a child is born. The

Maya calendar The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon a system which had ...

for

divination Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout histor ...

, or the "Sacred calendar", is believed to foretell a child's future, as some days are more auspicious than others. The calendar is important in Maya society for interpreting and shaping children's futures. However, Mayans also believe that midwives are able to foretell the life of a child based on the interpretations they can make from the markings on the umbilical cord and the

amniotic sac The amniotic sac, also called the bag of waters or the membranes, is the sac in which the embryo and later fetus develops in amniotes. It is a thin but tough transparent pair of membranes that hold a developing embryo (and later fetus) until shor ...

. They believe that based on the markings from the first born, the sex, number and interval of future births can also be foretold. The most important markings are that of a future shaman (worms or flies clutched in the fist of a newborn), midwife (white mantle over the head, which comes from the amniotic membrane) and a baby that will endanger the survival of future siblings (born with a double

whorl A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral ...

in its crown).

Rituals

The midwife is the first to see the

infant An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...

and before a mother can bond with her baby, the midwife is expected to carefully interpret the signs that the child bears, and she alone will interpret what profession the child is destined for. She must then carefully remove, dry and preserve the signs which will be protected by the maternal grandmother. Praying is considered key in the delivery of a child, and as soon as the midwife is informed of a birth she begins praying. She is also expected to pray before entering the house and before touching the pregnant woman. She must also pray to each of the four corners of the room which is said to house invisible guardians. One ritual must be performed when subsequent children die, since it is believed that the first-born child (often born with a double whorl on the umbilical cord) chases and eats the spirit of the newborn. In an effort to save the newborn's life, the midwife wraps a live chicken in a cloth and tours the room with the eldest child praying to each of the four corners. The chicken is then beaten to death on the back of the eldest child (behind closed doors and away from the newborn). She then makes a soup with the chicken and the eldest child is forced to eat it in its entirety, even if it takes several meals to do so. At the end of the bed rest week the midwife must perform her final cleansing rituals, thus signaling the end of her services. The baby is bathed and new dress is placed on the naval, and the hammock in which the baby is to sleep is prayed over. She asks that the baby be protected. The mother also receives purification in a semi-public

hair washing Hair washing is the cosmetic act of keeping hair clean by washing it. To remove sebum from hair, some apply a surfactant, usually shampoo (sometimes soap) to their hair and lather the surfactant with water. The surfactant is rinsed out with water ...

ceremony. The final

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

that must be performed is the sweeping and cleaning of the room before she leaves. She then prays one last time, thanking the spirits for a successful delivery.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Maya Maya society Midwifery