early manual for negro midwives

hey in the comments i just received this link to:

Early Manual for Negro Midwives in Mississippi

and it looks interesting. i would love to own a copy.

This is wonderful historical nursing collectible, the “MANUAL for MIDWIVES” printed by the Mississippi State Board of Health in 1939. The manual was to be used by Negro Midwives who traveled all counties of Mississippi on horseback and by wagon (As shown) to help deliver 1000’s of babies before W.W.II. and after. The 40 page manual is in excellent condition without torn or missing pages and has many wonderful photographs including “Mother, Daughter, Granddaughter” all midwives.The manual contained all the information the Midwife would need, including Official Recognition and Registration, Permit and a copy of the Midwife Record. There is a list of “Equipment of Midwife” (Pictures) and “No Instrument Other Than Those Listed Shall Be Carried Or Used By The Midwife” The manual has detailed instruction on how to set the room up for delivery, what is “Needed at the time of Delivery”, how to put her gown on, care of the baby and detailed instructions on what to do for each emergency. Everything they could think of is in the book. The manual also lists the songs the Midwives had to learn and the “PRAYER WRITTEN BY NEGRO PUBLIC HEALTH NURSE FOR MIDWIVES” This is a little Nursing Treasure and an Heirloom for Midwives. Includes shipping and may be returned anytime in the future for more than you paid for it.

doulas and certifications

thinking of this post on doulas and certifications

i think that learning all that you can about reproductive health and justice, pregnancy, birth, post partum care, breast feeding, conception, abortion, miscarriage, newborns, infants, and children, and so much more is vital to being a responsible birth worker.

i studied reproductive health and justice in a myriad of ways.  DONA doula workshop, books, internet, being mentored, sharing with birth workers, meditation and movement, assisting births, and talking talking talking with mothers.

i personally value sitting in workshops, being able to ask questions in person and long distance.  i found the DONA doula workshop interesting and it gave me a better sense of the attitudes and foci of the birth worker community in Minnesota.   but taking the workshop does not mean that i must apply for the certification.  or follow any organization’s entire track toward certification.  nor do i need certification to work as a doula or to be a trainer.

and maybe it is important for me to repeat that: i do not need certification from any organization to work as a doula or be a trainer.  yes, w/o certification i may not be able to work as lucratively for a doula organization as others choose to do.  but i can be a birth worker.  a really good doula.  and i can mentor others to becoming birth workers.  one of my mentors toward becoming a doula did not have her certification at the time but she had lots of experience, a great trust in birth and women, and a practice of solidarity with marginalized peoples.

crossing borders

honestly i am not sure how to respond to this article from september 2008.

my honest response is post-despair.  as in after you have accepted that the world is fucked up.  and that the masters are determined to win. and you are only one person, then what?  i am sure i am not the only person who feels this way.  what happens after you throw up your hands and say: look, that sucks but i cant do anything about it.  i’ve got enough causes on my plate.

this country is denying the citizenship of people because they were born in the wrong part of the country.  if you were born in the southwest you are more likely to be denied citizenship. if you were born with brown skin in the wrong part of the country, if you were born poor in the wrong part of the country, if you were born by midwife, if you were born…

i am feeling overwhelmed lately.  i have to leave the country in less than a month.  the apartment is a mess.  my kid needs to be potty trained.   i have to study arabic.  i have to write.  i have to keep in touch with my friends.  i have to sustain a relationship with my partner.  i have to get my brain in gear to travel with a one-year old and a bunch of other complications.

and so this shouldnt be my issue.

but i too am about to cross borders.  and hopefully that crossing will be easy.  and hopefully i can live in the place that i want to live.  but there is a possibility that something will go wrong.  that i too will be told that i dont belong.  because of the color of my skin.  the sound of my name.  the look of my child.  the sound of my voice.

i thought about writing a poem about this lil article.  perhaps i still will.  but what will a poem do?  other than open up language like a child with a dictionary and a magnifying glass?

ugh, people think i do what i do because i want to be helpful.  if helpful was the feeling i was going for…this is the last thing i would be doing.   i so rarely feel helpful.  you ever have that feeling that you are helpless and determined to do what gets you up in the morning?

my kid is going to be up soon.  el compa will be making breakfast for.  maybe the insomnia will be past like wind on the ocean and i will get some sleep.  the sun will shine maybe.  a us soldier will be told that he is not a citizen, but, hey! thanks for the service.

why do i have insomnia?  cause the heart is not meant to be endure this much without breaking and i spend my nights patching the heart back together with crazy glue and spittle.

when i am around others i can be lighthearted, funny, witty, even, quick, sociable, and cute.  but when it is dawn and i watch the children march themselves to school bundled in boots and furry hats, i cant help but wonder if god knew what he was doing when he made us.  god was like the kid who enters the science fair with a project that was way too complicated for the time allotment so he turns in a half-done project gets a ‘c’ on it and then throws it in the trash and figures next year he is just making a volcano.

fuck god.

it is like 730 am.  i am going to crack open a beer.  smoke a cigarette.  and get some sleep.

a balancing act

BEFORE

i am not a primitivist.  i do not romanticize the past simply because it was before now.  i do not believe in some edenic before when all went perfectly.  but i do have to ask the question: how the fuck did the human race propagate itself before doctors, obgyns, or certified licensed and insured midwives?

let me put it this way: what does it take to call yourself a midwife?

i imagine that for most of human history midwives were just women who had given birth or were the sister or the mother or had been around for birth and knew the rituals, the songs, the calls that that community had developed around the emergence of new life into the world.  there was probably a well of community knowledge that could be dipped into held by various men and women in the community.  maybe some oral traditions.  maybe some drawings that acted as a guide and a recorder of history.  there were probably some herbs that were known to be helpful.  probably folks had watched other mammals give birth.

and they knew the particular women giving birth.  knew her temperment, her favorite foods, what her moods looked like.

when most ‘natural’ midwives say that midwifery is a calling found around the globe, i think this is who they have in mind: the mother, sister, aunt, cousin, grandmother, neighbour who came by and helped out.  the woman who had a knack.  who was in charge of gathering and drying the herbs.  the woman who took it upon herself to care.

this is the way birth is happening in a good many parts of the world right now.  as i type.

and yet the same ‘natural’ midwives will tell you how their craft is ancient and wise and sacred, based on the knowledge and lives and experiences of these aforementioned women, would be offended if that woman moved into their community and called herself a midwife.  hung a shingle outside her door.  and started attending births.

currently diggin

blogs and websites i am currently diggin.  check them out.

quirky black girls: i am one of the contributers for this blog.  and i am proud of it.  it is part of the quirky black girl movement taking over the internet.

birthing project usa: the underground railroad for new life: a friend just hipped me to this organization/movement and i am amazed that i had never heard of it before.  its been around since 1988 and is focused on improving birth outcomes in african american communities by pairing an expecting mother with a sister who is the mother’s friend and advocate until at least the child’s one year birthday.  they also have a parallel program for expecting fathers.  incredible.

muslimnista: blogging on islamic feminism.  superb analysis.  if for a second you think that being muslim and being feminist cannot occur in the same body, on the same blog, think again.  what i love about this blog, honestly, is that it reminds me of the muslim women i have hung out with around the world.

radical doula: radical doula just sent me some real love in terms of a recent post of hers and i have got to send it back.  frankly, when i began this blog a year and a half ago she was the only other doula blogging about issues like race, sexuality, class, etc. and especially about reproductive justice.  the ways that the pro-life movements rhetoric disempowers women who choose to give birth as well as those who dont.  super-inspiring.

black girl get free: iresha also blogs for quirky black girls and i love her writing.  in her latest post she says:

Not only should Black Women be enlighten, but in order for the survival of their existence, they must embrace all things that the dominant culture sees as inferior and reject societies imposed racial and gender formation of them. The Blackness of Black Women’s beauty, and the culture that is seen as deviant by others, can also be seen as resistance from Black Women….Black is always seem as something “bad”, BUT White is not complex enough to use for Black Women, because Black Women’s beings are too complicated. Darkness is where things cannot be seen and creation has been bought forth. Also, bringing forth a creation is not an independent action but one that is created communally, by Black Women coming together. Its always good to create new things and embrace what our ancestors have left for us to discover their creations. So whomever said that darkness is dull and murky must have never seen the light that Blackness creates.

plus she is also from the va (what! what!) so represent.

mamita mala: mamita is real.  a real poet.  which you know the moment you read her work.  and a real person who blogs about her life as if she has no other choice but to be concrete, passionate, detailed, and self-aware.

revolutionary motherhood: i wrote for this blog as well.  (i did not list every blog i write for…so there…) and i love the women who post here.  the work is diverse, surprising, mama supportive, self-contradictory and authentic.

kameelah writes: she is a photographer.  she loves lists.  she is a public school teacher.  and a hijabi.

so as i was finishing up this post, i realized, hey, there are four sites that are authored by black women, two by latinas, one that is racially diverse, and two that focus on muslim women (which is not a race or ethnicity but is treated as both in the states), and thought…you know what this is what new media is about.

incite! conference

if you want to read about some of my insights from the incite! conference a couple of weeks ago…check out this link

history of black midwives

so this little article comes from the site of international center for the tradition of childbirththe black midwives site.  i wish that there was an unbroken tradition of rituals as is described in the first paragraph, but our traditions our history are broken.  i see the acts of colonization genocide enslavement as the breaking of our history of our tradition, the maafa–the middle passage, as the break between the past and the future and we have to find a way to heal this break.  part of that healing is to find powerful rituals today that can create community.  and by creating community sustaining community, a community of equals a community that engenders mutual liberation of its members, we heal from the break.  because traumas personal cultural social historical traumas move into a healing place when we feel and believe and act as if we are powerful and relevant to others.  when we can live our own worth.  when the new selves that we created in the traumas have a home.  when they have created that home of love for themselves.

what was the name of that first black midwife?  what did she learn about birth and death in the middle passage?  what did she learn about the power of the female body?  all i can imagine around her on that boat is blood and shit and her having to midwife women with her and her in chains.  and her teaching women how to kill their children with prayer and calls to the ancestors.

and what was her name?

History of Black Midwives

Long ago, and in many parts of Africa today, midwives were revered, loved and depended on by the entire village. The Grand-midwives taught the apprentice midwife the traditional rituals of womanhood, childbearing and family care. These sacred rituals included prayer, homage and respect for the ancestors, massage, and preparation of food, breastfeeding, postpartum care and much more.

Sharon Robinson, critic and professor of midwifery and black health care systems, states in her 1984 study for the Journal of Nurse-Midwifery that the first Black lay midwife came to America in 1619, bringing with her a knowledge of health and healing based on her African background.

The most popular story about the good work of midwives comes from the Bible (Exodus 1:14 through Exodus 1:22). It tells of the Egyptian midwives Shiphrah and Puah, listening to the voice of God and refusing to kill the first-born sons of the Hebrews as Pharaoh had ordered.

Midwifery has always been an honored and spiritual profession among Africans who continued their rich traditions, even while enslaved. Historically Black midwives have saved the lives of countless mothers and babies throughout the United States. Both free and enslaved Black midwives provided midwifery care not only to their communities but also to families outside of the Black community.

The word “midwife” in many African languages is synonymous with spiritual healer. The Traditional Midwife’s calling expanded beyond catching babies; she was a healer, a spiritualist, a Public health activist and a community organizer. A woman entered into midwifery through several doors, a calling from God, appointed by the elders, chosen by an older midwife or moved by community need.