Prenatal Care, Birth, Postnatal Care and Menopause

Herbalist and healer, Doña Enriqueta, will speak at noon on Saturday, Sept. 4 at Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, 922 San Pedro Ave. This workshop is dedicated exclusively to a discussion of prenatal care, birth, afterbirth care and menopause. Today, we have forgotten the traditions that women followed in preparation for giving birth successfully without surgical intervention. Doña Enriqueta, a midwife with more than sixty years experience, reminds us of what were and are successful techniques for a healthy pregnancy. She discusses the current prevalence of infertility and the risks of fertility treatment. Finally, she touches on the topic of menopause and how we can care for ourselves at this stage of life.

Doña Enriqueta is a world renowned Zapotec midwife, herbalist, and healer. Her practice embodies the elders' maxim to live with clarity within Zapotec spiritual and cultural beliefs and traditions. Neither the ravages of 500+ years of colonialism, nor the grinding poverty it brought to indigenous communities, have undone the spiritual world of the Zapotec, or the communal political and economic base within which traditional knowledge of medicine and herbalism is passed on from generation to generation.

 

Doña Enriqueta tells us. . . "Our grandparents used to say that we were the 'people of the clouds,' because behind the clouds, there is clarity of life." The basis of that clarity is the proper conduct of our elders who fought to bequeath to us the extremely important value of respect, for ourselves, each other, for the family, for the children, for nature, for all living things.

 

Doña Enriqueta first learned her midwifery skills from la abuela Marcelina. She initiated her legendary midwifery skills as a 17 year old girl in an act of compassion for her sister who faced giving birth alone. She continued to receive training in rural health services from the Red Cross and went on to provide midwife, traditional and other health services in rural villages and indigenous communities throughout her native state of Oaxaca under the auspices of the Department of Health. She then joined the staff in the Instituto Indigenista Nacional (IIN) where she worked with other indigenous healers, midwives, herbalists, masseurs, bonesetters, snake and corn shamans, and other adivinos.