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Prenatal care can detect and treat many problems. Preeclampsia comes to mind. The classic signs of preeclampsia are high blood pressure and protein in the urine. It affects the placenta by reducing the blood flow and, unchecked, can lead to intrauterine growth retardation and fetal demise. Checking blood pressure and urinary protein are routine parts of prenatal care.

 Read more…. Marion’s Message: Preventing Problems Through Prenatal Care

I had to trot to keep up with Doña Juanita on the footpath leading to our first prenatal home visit of the day—a first time mother who had been born into Doña’s hands some 17 years past. Doña Juanita was in her 60s—my elder at the time—small, fierce, and focused. She brought nothing with her but her hands and a lifetime of wisdom born of experience.

 Read more…. Village Prenatal Bringing Birth Back to Community

Imagine that you are a young woman, poor and pregnant. Let’s say your name is Myrna. Your home is located in a remote, rural area of an island that is recovering from disaster. You have had no prenatal care because it’s too far to walk and even if it was nearby, you could not afford the cost.

 Read more…. Buntis Day Party: A Mercy In Action Imaginative Prenatal Model in the Philippines

met Midwife Penninah Mukhebi at the FreMo Birth Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, where I was offering volunteer midwifery for the month of May 2023. I traveled there by myself and was welcomed with open arms and kindness by the FreMo staff, including their director Moffat Osoro, a kind, well-spoken Kenyan man.

 Read more…. Volunteering in Kenya, Friendship with Midwife Penninah, and African Naming Traditions

I would like to share my thoughts on prenatal care, which I believe can start before the woman is even pregnant as she prepares her body for her pregnancy.

 Read more…. Thoughts on Prenatal Care

Tricks of the Trade – Issue 147 | Traditional Use of a Rebozo – Prodromal Labor – On Breech Babies – Natural Remedies

 Read more…. Tricks of the Trade – Issue 147

Doña Cuca and I sat next to each other looking down at the ground. She was sad. I was too. She spoke of the changes happening in her village around birth. The wimyn were trusting the hospital more than the use of rebozo and sobada (1). The young ones were not interested in a midwife path. She felt the feeling of disappearance. The dissolving of a life she had lived and loved. I told her the loss had already happened for my people and in my land. We sat together. Sad about it all.

 Read more…. Kneeling before the Elders

Women in Australia ask each other “Who are you going to for Prenatal Scare?” Sadly, that could be said in North America, too. Stressed practitioners unloading their personal fears on pregnant women is a common scenario all over the world.

 Read more…. Prenatal Care or Prenatal Scare?

Hampi Warmi Initiative (Peru project) includes the offering of the “Wachakuy: Sacred Birth Way” to international birthworkers and aspiring midwives, doulas, and birthkeepers to experience a unique entrance to the Andean ancestral teachings around birth, midwifery, and BirthGuardianship around pregnancy, the sacred Initiation of birth and the postpartum.

 Read more…. Wachakuy Birth Program

Across the animal world, we observe shared practices of welcoming and nurturing the young (Narvaez and Bradshaw 2023). Sometimes the offspring is encased in a shell, sometimes in the uterus, but in every case the offspring is held in a body of love—first from mother, then from the kind attention of others who move in to care and guide the newborn—father, grandmother, sibling, midwife.

 Read more…. The Evolved Nest: What We Share with the Animal World

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that you can’t step in the same river twice. If he were alive today and had an understanding of midwifery education, he would probably say the same about Mercy In Action’s midwife training programs. I first wrote for Midwifery Today 32 years ago, an article titled Midwifery Education: A Global Perspective (Midwifery Today Issue 20, 1991.)

 Read more…. Mercy In Action—Still Training Global Midwives After All These Years!