On a recent quiet morning, Regina Llanes Granillo placed her hands on a new mother’s body.
She and another midwife began a sobada, a Mayan abdominal massage meant to help the intestines settle back into place. With warm lavender and lemon balm oil, she traced slow circles across the stomach, the ladder of the intestines, the ovaries.
Her hands paused at the bellybutton, pressing lightly, searching for what she called a “heartbeat” — a psychic pulse that she said would reveal whether the body’s energy was too high or too low.
The ritual was a tribute not only to the child born months earlier, but to the transformation of her friend, Kay Nicte Cisneros García, into a new mother: a birth within a birth.
Then she bound Ms. Cisneros with shawls and led her to a bath infused with herbs. These are the kind of midwife practices rooted in Indigenous traditions and knowledge that an increasing number of women in Mexico are turning to, experts say.
Just as more women have been seeking out midwives and doulas in the United States and Europe over the last decade, interest has risen in Mexico, including in the capital, according to researchers, health experts and midwives.
Here, women navigating the sometimes isolating experience of motherhood say the traditions offer a more personal and meaningful approach to childbirth and postpartum care than conventional health centers, clinics or hospitals usually provide.
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The post In Mexico, New Mothers Are Seeking Out Old Rituals appeared first on New York Times.
