3 Ways to Center Indigenous Ways of Being in Birth Work

Birth is the entry to life and exists across all communities, species, and life forms. Like most things, birth has become political, capitalist, misogynist, and toxic - which often leaves marginalized communities exposed to harm and separated from the depth of care we all deserve. 

As advocacy-centered birth workers, doulas, community organizers, and caretenders - how do we explore, redefine, and embody birthwork that centers decolonized, indigenous approaches? How do we center individual and community needs over systems, standards, or profits?

The process and pace at which the reproductive journey moves, is an expression of nature. Transitioning from preconception to postpartum unfolds many layers, details, and transformations, and this is something that is written into every living being. 

Naming the Systems That Have Dehumanized Us 

So how did the art of birth transition from being a process of life to be honored into a product to be marketed, sold, oppressed, and gate kept? 

The answer to the how is closely connected to the same answers of how we collectively treat bodies that are seen as “less than” by societal standards of “typical” or that cause a disruption in productivity, profit, or fast pace flow such as the Disabled, ill, or pregnant. 

We have come to view many things through the lens of colonialism as “normal” or “standard”. Yet, there are many areas of life that, if we are embodying truth and flow, we are unable to, with integrity, fully follow what has become accepted as normal. 

Bear Hebert speaks on capitalism, business, and how to work within the systems we are currently living in with greater integrity. Eri Guajardo Johnson speaks on decolonizing birthwork and reproductive spaces. king yaa speaks of birthing beyond the binary. 

From these perspectives and my own unlearning, I have rediscovered the power that lies within contemplation and how this too can be indigenous, healing, expansive, and truly rooted in decolonizing birth spaces and the ways in which birthing bodies are treated. 

I continue to explore dismantling the layers of harm, oppression, and exclusions I embody in my approaches to existing in all the ways possible. And in this, I continue to learn that I must consider and amplify questions that center thoughts, ways, and possibilities that often feel outdated, foreign, and possibly over complicated or way too hard. Facing the fears of going against what has been normalized and standing in the truths of what feels most inclusive and possible for all, including those who often experience the most harm. The ways in which we have learned to exist have been modelled after systems that benefit the most able, the most resourced, and those whose proximity to power is greatest. 
This leaves those who do not fit into cookie cutter molds on the outskirts, with limited or what may seem to be no options, support, or possibilities of being able to create, expand, and find freedoms to exist with full autonomy. 

Birth is Indigenous

Birth is our entry into the world, and to center, honor, and create spaciousness for reverence of the experiences that each person’s soul seeks is decolonial work. It’s indigineous. Last summer in the BIPOC mentorship with Birth Bruja I reflected with peers on the difference we felt, observed, and wanted to acknowledge between colonialism and indigenousness. Not as people or groups, but as actions and ways of being.
We contemplated how colonialism feels, acts, and embodies fast development, progression, innovation, taking without replacing, leaving behind, building without closure. While indigenousness expands slowness, remembering, is consensual and collaborative, is okay with change, and generous. 

Reflecting on the work that we do and the ways in which we hold, take up, and expand spaces - how do we center and embody more indigenous practices in birth spaces as we are continually challenged by the colonial and capitalistic systems we exist within?

I believe everything that we do on a small scale expands and impacts the possibilities and realities of the community and world as a whole. In this, I also believe that every person is a leader of an action and carries the possibility to lead others into greater healing, hope, and becoming beacons of change that we seek within the work. 

And in my perspective, the greatest possibility for changing the world begins with supporting birthing people through more autonomous transitions that empower the outcomes that the individual seeks and holds space for repair, healing, and long term community connections beyond birth. 

This belief is indigenous in nature and in action. And in order to reflect this, we as birth workers, community leaders, and support people must also embody this belief within ourselves inside and beyond birthing spaces. 

This is amplified in the ways in which we speak, move, share information, and the ways in which we hold relationship accountability. It is in slowness of actions when there is no immediate need for urgency and affirming the reminders that each person is the leader of their own reproductive journey, even when everything reflects differently. And the ways in which we call in community for expansive support to help guide a birthing person through every moment of their transition including weeks, months and even years beyond pregnancy. 

The way in which each culture and community chooses to express this will look unique to their own lineage, proximity to privilege, access to resources and connections, and individualized needs. The attempt with decolonizing birth spaces is not to replicate a specific mold or cultural practices in all spaces, but to implant the knowledge, practices, and collaborative creation of centering each journey, including reproductive needs, as its own by coming back to indigenous actions over replicating colonial norms. 

3 Ways to Center Indigenous Ways of Being in Birth Work

Sometimes, identifying where to start is the best way to begin. No matter if you’re new to birthwork or if you’re seeking to shift the ways you have been holding space as a birth worker, here are 3 simple things you can begin practicing daily to embody decolonial practices and indigenousness in your birthwork.  

1. Slow down and center time as infinite over amplifying urgency. 

In this fast paced, digitally-centered society, it’s challenging to balance building a business that feels like it is sustainable in ways that support our personal living and survival needs and that allows space for us to stay true to the space needed to do this work. But I believe that if we don’t change the way we are showing up and exchanging energy, information, and holding space as individuals, then we will not be able to shift the way we are doing this as an industry. 

So in your day to day life, are you creating space for rest, repair, reflection, grace, curiosity? Are you creating practices that empower your health and wellness needs to be at the forefront of your life? 

When we remove the pressures of colonial approaches to existing we can identify that in most situations, there is enough time to open to receive. To take a breath or a pause. And to curiously explore beyond what is being offered or fears of the unknown. If we are able to embody this as individuals, we are able to not only vocalize this with our clients 1:1, but we are also able to mirror this to everyone we touch in our community. 

What we need as society is more spaciousness for possibilities beyond what is being offered. What we need to shift the ways in which birthwork mirrors colonialism is to invite ourselves and those around us to remove the ways in which we oppress each other and ourselves to fit within systems, boxes, or standards that are not true to our own individual molds. 

2. Practice consent with self, with clients, and within your community.

We often see consent as a permission. A yes or no. But consent is also a curiosity. It can be granting permission to open up to an exploration of the unknown. In order to open, we must find safety, build trust, and learn to lean into the resources, people, and the options we have available around us that are designed to support us in times of need. But if we are not in practice with self consent, our ability to trust is not sold because we are unable to determine our true yes or no and often may find ourselves in situations where we feel disempowered, disconnected, or exposed to harm. 

Because colonialism does not include consent (the very principle of colonizing is to take control over another) on individual levels, we have to remember how to rebuild our relationship with holding our boundaries, truth, and consent to access our personal spaces. 

As advocacy-centered doulas and people supporting people through reproductive transitions, a major gift that we can extend to those in our communities is the practice of relearning how to hold consent no matter what space we are in. We can do this passively through our casual conversations and body language and more actively through practicing certain phrases, identifying and speaking our boundaries (and then holding them) and even in the moments that we may not have taken the actions that we can later identify as owning our consent - holding space for grace, forgiveness, and acknowledgement that we did the best we could in that moment and in the next moment we will do better. 

3. Honor and create reverence for individuality, culture, and social location.

No birthing person, experience, or journey will be the same, even when they are similar. In the medical industrial complex, it is often the baseline to standardize situations that are similar to attempt to produce an outcome that has been experienced before. This process not only leaves significant space for problematic actions to unfold, but it also devalues the autonomy and individuality that each person deserves in their care. 

Sometimes the simplest and most healing things we can do is be fully present with another in ways that allow them to find what feels safe for them to be, express, question, and identify as their own. There will always be cases of urgency that surface, but more often than not, there are more options for honoring, witnessing, hearing, holding, and collaboratively exploring possibilities with another that include their specific and individual needs, desires, and accessibility. When we create and share how we honor our own selves and those around us in reverence for our individuality, culture, and social locations - we give permission to others to not only do the same, but to recreate the norm. 

One Journey at a Time

The ways in which we move into action imply what we believe to be truths. So as we continue to learn, grow, and build options in birthwork, building our individual practices and collective foundation centering indigenous actions over colonial approaches, we expand possibilities of shifting society, one reproductive journey at a time. 

Find out more about my work by visiting my website at selfstudylab.com and slowbirthcollective.com.

euni (she/they) is a Trauma Informed Embodiment Facilitator, Reiki Practitioner, Intimacy + Connection Guide, Postpartum Researcher, Caretender, and Chef, Community Organizer, Full Spectrum Doula, Artist, and Writer. euni works with women, men, and queer/non-binary individuals and couples on integration and re-embodiment after/through transitions. She focuses on challenges that are often tied to the reproductive and digestive systems like shame, sexuality, intimacy, and reproductive transitions. euni uses somatic practices art, movement, breathwork, journaling, photography, food, herbs + plants, nature, cultural reverence, and other modalities to support clients + community into deeper healing and liberation.

Outside of embodied healing, euni is also the founder of Slowbirth Collective and Community Liasion for BADT.