Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery 1

Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery

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Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery 2

Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery

Professional midwives are usually knowledgeable have the skill and act as

professional independent midwifery practitioners who have acquired approval by the North

American Registry of Midwives (NARM), and are qualified to provide the Midwives Model

of Care. This category of midwifery also entails training in clinics and healthcare offices to

provide maternity care and ensure woman-wellbeing throughout their childbearing period.

Professional Midwives usually provide their services to a small number of clients, this

promotes more personalized care for their respective clients, and work to ensure a healthy

pregnancy, and create awareness to the expectant to promote quality practices during the

cycle. Certified Professional Midwives need knowledge about and experience in out-of-

hospital settings. Furthermore, they should be competent in providing midwifery services in

homes and birth centers.

On the other hand, traditional midwifery involves individuals who are neither guided

by certifications nor licensing, rather, traditional midwives work along with a wide range of

courses such as religion, personal, or philosophy. This category of midwifery is based on the

belief that the orchestrators answer to the communities they render their services or that

business involving their services is entirely between them and their clients, or their contracts

need not be legislated, or that their patients have their rights to select the quality of midwifery

services to be provided with, overlooking their legality. Traditional midwives offer their

services in most of Guatemala's population which is rather heavily built on cultural practices

than a biomedical model. The midwives attend to about 71% of indigenous expectant women

in Guatemala 2. Traditional midwives do not require any certifications nor licensing from

legal authorities, rather, their skills are what make them qualified for care of women in their

pregnancy periods and infants. These midwives work in areas that experience a high
Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery 3

mortality rate, as opposed to the United States, whose mortality rates score lower about 24 in

a hundred thousand live births 3.

Infant Deaths/ 1000 Births

200
180
160
Infant deaths/1000 births

140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 3 6 9 2 5 8 1 4 7 0 3 6 9 2 5 8 1 4 7 0 3 6 9
1 95 1 95 1 95 1 95 1 96 1 9 6 1 9 6 1 9 7 1 9 7 1 97 1 98 1 9 8 1 98 1 98 1 99 1 99 1 9 9 2 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 2 01 2 0 1 2 0 1 2 01
1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/
2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3 2 /3
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
dates 1950-2019

Infant Deaths/ 1000 Births

Data Source: United Nations - World Population Prospects

From the graphical analysis above, there was reported an Infant mortality drop from

171.166/1000 in 1952 to 168.388 in 1953, a significant drop, possible causes being reduced

cases of abortion among teenage mothers and improved maternity practices adopted by the

community. Towards the year 2019, the infant mortality rate in Guatemala experiences a

gradual drop due to modern maternity health care, improved infrastructure to allow access to

health care services, and more informed community members due to the creation of

awareness 3.

The Guatemalan population is made up of two groups, the Ladinos, who are more

advanced to modern lifestyle and healthcare, however, the Mayan population which resides in

the rural areas are hardly reachable for modern healthcare ad emergency services, leading the

group to adopt non-skilled birth attendance. According to World Health Organization, only

17% of the indigenous women are attended to by skilled midwives. From the report, we can

learn that the population. Furthermore, the rural area population lack information about their
Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery 4

reproductive systems due to illiteracy, marry early, and hence high cases of childbirth

reported. This is different from the western medical practices that employ the use of

contraceptives to control childbirth and have access to modern maternity practices. From this

information, it is clear that much has to be done to introduce modern healthcare services to

control childbirth and mortality rate as well in the Guatemalan indigenous population; Mayan
3
.

Although the Ixmucané Birthing Centre was founded to promote modern and skilled

maternity care, it is unique in that it allowed local midwives to learn midwifery regardless of

institutional protocols that may be against the will of the nurse, in US birth centers, there are

very few places where one can study midwifery, to take time and give one-on-one care

throughout the entire child-bearing process 8. Nevertheless, the MFM and the Ixmucané

clinic allowed professional midwives to learn about Guatemalan rituals and observe their

knowledge and skills, which is a unique aspect, as for the US birth centers, this would never

work as professional midwifery is the priority aspect of serving clients, and learning about

traditional aspects would never be done.

The traditional midwives' training was best for literate members, the involvement of

traditional midwives who were illiterate was a poor method of teaching midwifery amongst

traditional midwives. The midwives lacked special skills and knowledge they could only

learn from school; this would rather put the lives of expectant women in danger. The use of

the book by the illiterate traditional midwives on the other hand could not help since it

constituted of healthcare practices that were modern and required background information,

this raises a question as to whether they could be helped with the professional information

without having a background in the proficiency due to illiteracy.

According to Box 2-1 on monitoring and evaluation skills, given that some of the

traditional illiterate midwives could not grasp the administration of teaching and training
Weaving Traditional and Professional Midwifery 5

more complex materials, this is also evident where the midwives could not comprehend

numeric values and the meaning of systolic and diastolic blood pressure 16. To be certain of

the effectiveness of the training program, the MFM should have introduced a method of

testing the proficiency of technical knowledge, the so noted complex materials, and the

overall literacy in reading values and understanding important biological concepts.

The MFM program close in 2014 due to a lack of enough staff to provide health and

maternity services 24 hours a day and carry out the training program. The professional

midwives could not be found in the state of Guatemala, reducing the chances of continuity of

service delivery at the birth center. The program also experienced bankruptcy since the

funding authorities had moved away, this led to the program getting closed 20. To keep the

MFM running, the authorities in play would have reached out to the government for funding,

this would also attract professional midwives to come and continue with the training program

as well as midwifery. To avoid future contingencies, they would encourage the indigenous to

attend professional training in medical colleges to provide professional midwives from within

the Guatemalan population.

References

What is a CPM? .http://narm.org/

Types of Midwives, 2020 https://mana.org/about-midwives/types-of-midwife

Guatemala Infant Mortality Rate 1950-2021, 2020

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GTM/guatemala/infant-mortality-rate