Alaska Native Birthworkers Community founders enjoying a winter day in Anchorage. (L-R): Charlene Apok, Olga Lucason, Stacey Lucason, Abra Patkotak, Helena Jacobs, Tala David, Margaret David. Photo by EJ David.
Indigenous Rebirth
A Return to Traditional Birthing Practices and Maternal Care
Margaret David pregnant with Tala David getting an herbal foot bath at a blessing ceremony to prepare for her home birth. Photo by Rhonda Grantham.
Alexandra Carraher-Kang
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ounded three years ago, the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community is a small, grassroots, volunteerbased organization in Anchorage, Alaska, whose members call themselves “midwives, healers, mothers, customer-owners of our Tribal health care system, community/social justice activists, artists, doctoral students, researchers, sisters and aunties.” Together, they represent more than a handful of Tribal Nations within Athabascan, Iñupiaq, Yup’ik, and Siberian Yupik cultures. Margaret David (Koyukon Athabascan), Helena Jacobs (Koyukon Athabascan), Abra Patkotak (Iñupiaq), Charlene Apok (Iñupiaq), Stacey Lucason (Yup’ik), and Stefanie Cromarty (St. Lawrence Island
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Yupik) are the founders and lead volunteers behind the initiative. In the words of Jacobs, the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community is made of “Native women who offer care to pregnant people, including other Native women, in the same way we have cared for one another for millennia. We are seeking to reclaim our ancestral knowledge, as well as learn new knowledge to grow the capacity of our local caregivers to call back these roles.” Alaska Native Birthworkers Community’s vision is that “every Alaska Native birthing person feels supported, well cared for, and full of the information they need to make confident choices around reproductive health, birthing, and parenthood... to reclaim as well as create new ceremony and heal our ancestors and future generations who may have been harmed through the colonization of our bodies, healthcare, and birthing practices.” The Community’s approach to perinatal support focuses not only on the medical aspects of giving birth and being a parent, but also on Indigenous cultures and the reclaiming of Indigenous bodies. “Birth itself is considered a ceremony,” Jacobs says, “and the specific ways each of us practice holding this ceremonial space differs greatly.” The Community provides on-call volunteer service for women at all stages of reproductive life: women just coming of age can be tattooed in an empowerment ceremony, women considering pregnancy can receive peer counseling, women who are pregnant receive support while birthing, and women who have given birth receive postpartum care. The Community is available to help women with their mental health and family wellness, in addition to collecting and redistributing donated newborn items, pregnancy care packages, and food bundles. The impacts that pregnancy and early childhood have on both mother and child cannot be overstated. The Community believes that pregnancy is an opportune time to work with families “because a pregnant person is especially motivated and open to healing and to positive health changes for the benefit of their child.” Formalizing a network of Alaska Native birthworkers who value the role that Indigenous culture plays in pre-and post-natal health is critical. In the words of the Community, “our young women want aunties to guide them through their transition into womanhood, our mothers want support to navigate pregnancy and childbirth, our sisters want
