Honoring Indigenous Birth Traditions: Lessons for the Future of Maternal Health
- lauren8615
- Oct 13
- 6 min read
As we observe Indigenous People's Day, we honor the generations of midwives and community healers who have always understood that birth is not just a medical event—it's a sacred, communal experience. Across Indigenous communities, midwifery has long been rooted in respect, relationship and responsibility to one another.
Those same principles guide today's birth centers, which work to restore autonomy, safety and connection to families across the United States.
What Indigenous Birth Traditions Teach Us
Long before birth moved into hospitals, Indigenous midwives tended to families where they lived—surrounded by kin, tradition, and spirit. Birth was ceremony. The midwife's role extended beyond delivery; she supported the mother's transition, the family's balance, and the community's wellbeing.
This wasn't healthcare as we've come to define it in modern systems. It was something far more comprehensive—a holistic approach that recognized birth as inseparable from family, culture, and community identity. The midwife knew your grandmother, had attended your mother's birth, and would be there for your daughter's journey into motherhood. She carried not just medical knowledge, but cultural wisdom passed down through countless generations.
That continuity of care—knowing your midwife, being seen as whole, and giving birth in a setting that reflects your values—is what birth centers strive to protect today. When families choose birth centers, they're often seeking to reclaim something that was never supposed to be lost: the intimacy, autonomy, and community connection that Indigenous peoples have always known birth requires.
The Costs of Separation
The medicalization of birth in the 20th century brought some advances, yes, but it also severed crucial connections. Birth became something that happened to women rather than something women did, supported by their communities. The rhythms of labor were subject to institutional schedules. The presence of family members became a privilege to be granted rather than an obvious necessity. Cultural practices were dismissed as superstition rather than honored as meaningful tradition.
For Indigenous communities, this disruption was particularly devastating. Forced relocations to urban hospitals, the loss of traditional birth attendants, and the imposition of Western medical models didn't just change where babies were born—they disrupted cultural transmission, weakened community bonds, and contributed to the health disparities we still see today.
The statistics tell a heartbreaking story. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American Indian and Alaska Native women are more than twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women. Access to culturally concordant care remains severely limited. These disparities are not the result of biology but of systemic disconnection—from culture, from community, and from control over how and where to give birth.
Reclaiming traditional birth knowledge, then, is not just about honoring heritage—it’s about restoring sovereignty, safety, and self-determination in maternal health.
Learning from Indigenous-Led Birth Initiatives
Across the United States, Indigenous communities are leading powerful initiatives to reclaim traditional birth practices while creating sustainable models for the future. The modern birth center movement is not new—it's a return. A return to listening, to trusting bodies and communities, and to building systems that reflect care rather than control.
In New Mexico, the Changing Woman Initiative (CWI)—founded and led by Navajo midwives—is developing the nation’s first Native-run birth center. Their vision combines traditional teachings, plant-based medicine and midwifery care to create a space where Indigenous families can birth in alignment with their values and cultural traditions. CWI’s work demonstrates how reclaiming birth sovereignty can improve outcomes and strengthen community wellbeing.
At a national level, Birth Center Equity is working to ensure that Black, Indigenous, and other people of color–led birth centers have access to the capital and networks they need to thrive. By building funding pathways and collaborative infrastructure, they’re helping to sustain the very models of care that have historically been underfunded yet most effective at reducing disparities.
The National Indian Health Board (NIHB) continues to advocate for policies that support traditional birth workers and culturally appropriate maternity care, highlighting the need for collaboration, representation and respect for tribal sovereignty in maternal health systems.
What these programs understand—and what all healthcare professionals can learn from—is that true healing requires more than protocols and procedures. It demands relationship, seeing each person within their full context, and recognizing that wellbeing happens in community.
When midwife and birth advocate Tamara Taitt reminded us during Birth Center Week that midwives were historically “all things to all people” in their communities, she was describing exactly what Indigenous birth workers have always embodied. They were never just birth attendants—they were counselors, herbalists, community connectors, and keepers of cultural knowledge. Their work was comprehensive because they understood that a person’s health cannot be separated from their relationships, their environment or their spiritual wellbeing.
A New Way to Connect: Introducing the National Birth Center Directory
This brings me to something we're incredibly excited to share. This week, we're taking one small step toward amplifying the work of birth centers nationwide and making it easier for families to find the care that aligns with their values.
On Wednesday, October 15, we'll launch the National Birth Center Directory—a growing resource designed to help:
Families find birth centers near them and discover their options for community-based care
Advocates and researchers understand the birth center landscape and identify gaps in access
Birth centers connect with one another as part of a national community of practice
By making birth centers easier to find, we hope to make their work easier to sustain—and to ensure that every family who wants community-based care can access it.
We envision this directory becoming more than just a searchable database. We see it as a tool for building connections, for demonstrating the nationwide reach of the birth center movement, for helping families understand that they have choices in how and where they give birth.
For birth centers, especially those in rural or underserved areas, visibility matters enormously. Families can't choose what they don't know exists. This directory aims to shine a light on the incredible work happening in birth centers across the country—work that often happens quietly, without the marketing budgets or institutional backing of hospital systems.
Why This Matters Now
The challenges facing birth centers mirror in some ways the challenges facing Indigenous communities working to restore traditional birth practices. Both operate within systems that weren't designed for them. Both face reimbursement structures that undervalue their comprehensive, relationship-based approach. Both struggle for visibility and legitimacy in a healthcare landscape that privileges institutional over community-based care.
But both also share something powerful: the knowledge that there's a better way, and the determination to build it despite the obstacles.
As maternity care deserts expand across the country, as hospitals close obstetric units in rural communities, as families search desperately for alternatives to the assembly-line approach of many hospital births, birth centers offer a proven, evidence-based model that improves outcomes while reducing costs.
The CMS Strong Start Initiative demonstrated conclusively that birth centers deliver safer care at lower costs. The families who choose birth centers report higher satisfaction, better experiences, and feeling more prepared for parenthood. And yet, birth centers remain underutilized, often unknown, fighting for sustainability despite their obvious value.
Making these centers visible, connecting them with families who need them, and building networks of support among birth centers themselves—these aren't small things. They're essential steps toward transforming our broken maternity care system into something that actually serves families well.
Moving Forward Together
Reclaiming these roots isn’t only an Indigenous issue—it’s an opportunity for the entire maternal health field to remember what birth can be when it’s grounded in respect and community.
As we build the next generation of birth centers, we can learn from Indigenous leadership: to center culture, listen deeply and design systems that restore trust.
Birth, after all, has always been about more than a single moment. It’s about connection—to our bodies, our families, our ancestors and to the generations yet to come.
We'd love to hear from you as we build this movement together. What does honoring Indigenous wisdom look like in your birth center or community? How do you incorporate traditional knowledge and cultural practices into the care you provide? We'd love to hear your stories and learn from your experiences.
Further Reading/Sources
Source | What It Shows |
Indigenous women face maternal mortality rates at about twice the national average | |
Documentation of traditional birth practices and contemporary Indigenous-led initiatives | |
The first Native-run birth center in the U.S., combining traditional Indigenous midwifery and modern care to restore birth sovereignty and cultural healing. | |
National initiative building capital and community support for BIPOC-led birth centers, addressing systemic inequities in maternity care access and funding. | |
Evidence on birth center outcomes, safety and cost-effectiveness | |
Advocates for Indigenous maternal health equity and supports policies that strengthen traditional birth practices and culturally centered care. | |
Evaluations showing improved outcomes and cost savings in birth center care |
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