 |
Indigenous newborns surviving in cultural safety
In Mexico, as elsewhere in Latin America, newborn mortality among indigenous peoples is higher than in the overall population.
Experts think this situation would improve if pregnant women and their newborns could be referred with sufficient time to government or private health services in case of complications during delivery or shortly after childbirth. Over the years, national and international health agencies have gone even further to advocate that all pregnancies should be closely monitored by medical personnel and all births supervised by skilled professionals with at least 10 years of general education and several years of specialized training.
As a result, many safe motherhood and child survival programmes have tried to persuade indigenous
 |
|
Patricia Luis (left) an Amuzgo community health promoter, interviews a
traditional midwife in Los Liros, a rural village of Xochistlahuaca, during
CIET's baseline survey on newborn survival. | peoples to give up long-held practices, like giving birth at home, with little regard for their views and cultural values. Indigenous women, particularly in remote areas, have shied away from government health facilities for a number of reasons –ill treatment, poor and irregular services, disregard for their traditions, fear of unnecessary episiotomies and c-sections. In other communities, where indigenous people have lost their mother tongue or where they live closer to hospitals, birth traditions seem to be receding. From a biomedical standpoint, this could be hailed as a success, but it certainly comes at a high cost for many cultures.
We are set on a different course. CIET is attempting to draw on both indigenous and biomedical knowledge and practices to improve maternal and perinatal outcomes in Xochistlahuaca and Tlacoachistlahuaca, two remote rural municipalities with majority indigenous populations (Amuzgo and Mixteco) in Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states. We hope to demonstrate that this culturally respectful way of doing things can be of use in indigenous settings across Latin America.
For this 3-year program, we have partnered with the Association of Indigenous Amuzgo Health
 |
|
Ofelia Jacinto Ramón, a community-based researcher, interviews
a woman outside her home in Terreno Venado, a Mixteco village in the
State of Guerrero | Promoters of Xochistlahuaca and the State health authorities to carry out a controlled trial with active participation from local indigenous people. This means that community members from Xochistlahuaca, together with government health staff and other key actors, will use evidence from community-led research to develop action plans, put them in practice and evaluate their impact. If these actions prove effective, they will later be adopted in Tlacoachistlahuaca –where there will be only standard government programs for the first years of the project, in order to compare health outcomes with Xochistlahuaca. The first stage of this project is a community survey in both municipalities in order to provide a baseline for this comparison. For further information on the fieldwork phase of the baseline survey, click here.
During the second stage, the community health promoters will coordinate whatever actions are agreed upon in Xochistlahuaca, as they are a crucial link between government health staff, traditional birth attendants and women and men in the communities.
|
|
