Nam Kiwanuka: You're listening to Mistreated. I'm Nam Kiwanuka. Before the 20th century, women- centered child birth was essential for communities throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. In this country, indigenous midwives were once a cornerstone of every indigenous community. But in the late 1800s to early 1900s, with the growth of Western medicine, midwives were accused of being unsanitary and unscientific. In 1910, the US Flexer report recommended hospital deliveries and the abolition of midwiffery. Experts have since called the report racist, sexist, and classist. Then in 1923, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a paper called the midwife problem, blaming high infant mortality on faulty obstetric practices. Calculated smear campaigns questioned the skills of midwives and called them ignorant and dirty. Even though the Flexer report was commissioned by the American Medical Association, it seems to have shaped Canadian institutions as well. For decades, working midwives in Canada and the US faced legal action and imprisonment. Before this, midwiffrey was a profession that empowered women from all backgrounds in Canada and the US, including indigenous and enslaved black women. But once childirth became medicalized, institutions dominated by white men were now the ones in control of how women gave birth. Case in point, by the 1920s, the Department of Indian Affairs in America passed legislation that forced indigenous women to leave their homes and travel away from their communities to give birth in hospitals. According to a study on Science Direct, this maternal evacuation would be implemented in Canada a few decades later. Quote, "Beginning in the 1960s, many indigenous women were forced to leave their communities in their final trimester and travel to regional or southern hospitals to give birth. Over subsequent decades, growing governmental control over indigenous child birth led to increased evacuation and medicalization of indigenous child birth. By the early 1980s, almost all births took place outside most remote indigenous communities. Throughout most of the 20th century, Canada was the only western industrialized country with no legal guidelines or guard rails for midwiffrey. In 1994, after decades of midwives pushing back, Ontario became the first province in Canada to recognize and legalize midwives, meaning that midwives no longer had to operate in legal gray zones. So, consider this for a moment. If you had a baby before 1994, you didn't have the choice as to how you had your baby. And if you dare to use a midwife, they could be accused of practicing medicine without a medical license and fined or even charged criminally in some cases. In 2024, Prince Edward Island became the last province in Canada to introduce midwiffrey services. And earlier this year, the regulatory bodies in PEI for nurses and midwives merged into one college. It's been said that history repeats itself. And when it comes to the business of birth and women's health, 2026 might as well be 1970s something. Amid a worsening maternal health crisis, some states in America are once again banning midwives or creating that legal gray zone where the midwife problem lived for most of the 20th century. In Canada, midwives could help to fill in the gaps in our strained health system. In Ontario, midwives have been fighting to close the pay gap. And in 2024, the government expanded the responsibilities of midwives so they can prescribe and administer more medication. If the history of midwives is this complicated in the global north, what is it like to practice as a midwife in places experiencing civil unrest or conflict? A new documentary follows five midwives who are doing that work. Here's a sneak peek.

Nam Kiwanuka: I couldn't unsee what I saw. I decided that I wanted to do something. On today's episode, we speak to two of the midwives and the director of the delivery line, Midwives on the Front Lines. We speak about the challenges of the work that these midwives do, but also about the joy of catching a baby. They join me now.

Nam Kiwanuka: I watched the delivery line Midwives on the front lines and I was completely blown away with this documentary. I'm so glad that you're all here to talk about it. If you could introduce yourselves, Nance, I'll start with you.

Nance Ari: I'm Nance Ari. I'm the filmmaker and co-producer with Sergio Kirby. Director, cinematographer, editor, bottle watcher.

Nam Kiwanuka: Jill of all trades.

Nance Ari: And Jimea.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Yeah, I'm a midwife. My name is Jimea Roas Garcia. I'm from Mexico and I live at the border, San Diego, the United States, Tijuana, Mexico. And I've been serving the migrant community for 10 years now.

Nam Kiwanuka: And and Jay.

Jay Melry: My name is Jay Melry. I'm a midwife. I've been a midwife for 40 years and have done various types of midwiffrey through that, including working on the US Mexico border, but working in HIV and now doing street work.

Nam Kiwanuka: I'm really looking forward to our conversation. I have to make a little bit of a confession. I was born in a civil war. I lived in a refugee camp, but I actually never gave any thought of what it must be like to give birth in a conflict zone and I'm also a mother of two. So this documentary is really eyeopening. Nance, I wanted to start with you. This documentary was filmed over eight years in five different countries and with five different midwives. Why did you want to tell the story of midwives in this way?

Nance Ari: Well, it's sort of a twofold reason. I had both my babies at home with midwives. And one was a I went into premature labor and it was stopped by myself and a midwife together. We worked together to keep the premature labor and have the baby at term. And it it worked out beautifully. And so I just felt that midwives the empowerment and the nurturing loving experience that I had bordering on spiritual and respectful experience that I had, it just made me believe that this was really the only way to give birth, in you know, obviously in a healthy birthing situation. But I've also been a photojournalist for 35 years and I had covered so many war zones and crisis zones, so many social issues. I've covered a lot of social issues around the world and I just thought this is one way to explore these issues from a female lens, because we've seen all these issues just coming at us full force largely from a male perspective, to be honest.

Nam Kiwanuka: Well the countries you travel to felt very intentional. How did you choose the locations and the midwives you featured?

Nance Ari: Well, a lot it was mostly issue based. So, we wanted to cover sort of the issues of of of our planet, you know, like climate change, migration, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, drug wars, terrorism. So, all these things we wanted to cover in a way that that had some hope. We found the midwives through just research and I I saw a New York Times article with Kimea. I had with all the Afghan refugees coming in when we first started. We reached out to another midwife in Toronto and she recommended, you know, talk to Jay. You have to talk to Jay. So you just it's word of mouth and finding those organizations that are doing that work, the NOS's in those countries. And usually if you get the recommendation from two or three different people and I asked another midwife in San Diego and oh, you have to meet Jimea. So you just get if you hear from three different people that this is your this is your midwife. than we knew. Also, it's it's it's like sorry, shooting fish in a barrel to find an amazing midwife doing amazing work. You know, there there thousands, hundreds of thousands around the world doing this work. So, it really isn't difficult to find amazing women. What I thought was so powerful was that each midwife in the community that they're serving is under such unique circumstances,

Nam Kiwanuka: But the I guess the the core part of it is women who are giving birth and under under very difficult circumstances. And Jimea, you showed so much care to the expectant moms. In the documentary, you say this, for many of them, this is the first time anyone has asked to touch their bodies. And that kind of just even now as I'm saying it, I just feel like the goosebumps through my body. Even the moms to be that you were helping, they also seem to be surprised to hear that coming from you. Why do you approach what you do in that way?

Jimea Roas Garcia: Well, sometimes for many of us, we have been raised or we have been growing under the assumption that women's bodies is is a territory that has to be inspected or studied. So yeah, we are changing the world in a way when we give back the power to every woman, to every pregnant person that we ask consent, the the real consent of their body to be able to work with them and go through their pregnancy journey and ask them for permission. Ask them.

Nam Kiwanuka: For information to to go with them along with their journey and it is healing. It is healing for them, for for us, for the whole community. And I really like that in the film we can get to see a little piece of the world conflict, the world, sadness and the wounds. And midwives. We are the healers in a way where we are planting seeds of peace around the world with all these um I would say radical tenderness and

Jimea Roas Garcia: Little ways to heal day by day with peace and love and changing anyone's life with providing a good beginning.

Nam Kiwanuka: It's interesting you said radical because it did feel radical in the documentary itself. And Jay, I have to admit that I was really surprised to see a midwife in Ontario in this documentary. We live in a G7 country.

Nam Kiwanuka: And I think the assumption that most of us have is that during pregnancy, if you need care, you will get the care that you need. Why did you want to be part of this documentary?

Jay Melry: Well, I was approached to be part of it. But I think it's also important if you're looking at things with a global view, then you have to also include yourself in that view, otherwise you stand back and you're evaluating. But if you see your own self reflected or your own country reflected in a global way, then you can find a place for things. And as a midwife who is working now exclusively with people outside who have not got housing, who don't have food, who don't have clothing, who don't have community. And when they're pregnant, very often those pregnancies are not planned. And so trying to find the care it's it's very difficult because a lot of people don't want to work with somebody who is and I'm talking about providers now, just generally providers don't want to work with somebody they think is going to take a lot of time because of social issues. But these social issues have been imposed on people.

Nam Kiwanuka: And bias too I guess.

Jay Melry: Pardon me.

Nam Kiwanuka: Bias.

Jay Melry: Oh yeah. Racism in Ontario healthcare is rampant. And I think this is particularly true. And if you can like Jimea was saying that it is it is radical even in these days to give back to women something that has been taken from them or anybody who's having a baby that they should be able to dictate how their body is going to react and allow it to react. We get in the way so often throughout the prenatal course and the birth itself and postpartum. But for the people that I work with like if you if somebody's never been asked if they can touch you, then they just give away so much particularly the women with whom I work, a lot of them have been abused terribly particularly on the street. They have to find protection for nighttime and just against men. So they have a lot of them have to hook up with men simply to be protected on the street.

Nam Kiwanuka: One of the things that I learned when I was researching this conversation was at some at one point in Canada midwives like if you practice midwiffrey it was against the law. Can you tell us about that?

Jay Melry: Yeah, there's very few of us I think left practicing who who were were from that time, but I am one of them. And if you wanted be the legislation for midwiffrey came in in 1994 and prior to that there was a cohort of us who were practicing midwiffery, but we had to do it under the table. you weren't you had to be very careful about who knew and you had to find doctors who would do blab work for you. And then you a lot of people particularly in communities of faith didn't want to go in the hospital again because of the treatment that they received. And so we were working with communities of faith but if somebody needed to go to the hospital, we had to pretend they were relatives.

Jimea Roas Garcia: I want to add that in the US side we can find states where midwifery is forbidden.

Nam Kiwanuka: To this day.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Yeah.

Jay Melry: Depending on the state.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yep. In 2026.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Yes. So there are different states that have they allow midwives to do certain types of deliveries, but there are other states that completely uh forbade home birth or midwifree practice. And then in Mexico's side, uh, we have been battling the government because there are new laws trying to make sure all the midwives and traditional midwives are seen as non specialized providers or not professional providers. So it's been a long journey of fighting for our rights to keep Midwifery alive to keep ancestral remedies to keep Midwifery in a way that it is there for the community and especially for people that need it in the most vulnerable moments. Like for us at the border, we having serving refugees, uh deportes, migrants, uh people that are in in situations where they cannot find asylum anymore because it's since the new administration of a year ago, uh they cancel asylum. So people that were approved already, they their cases were there approved and they were ready to go are stuck there. Yeah.

Nam Kiwanuka: And they cannot go back to their home country. And when I started serving the community, I was just at the border and I saw hundreds of people just waiting there. And I saw a lot of them were black women just waiting there. And I didn't know what was happening. I couldn't find any news or any information not from the US side, not from Mexico side. And then I realized that I needed to do something. I brought my midwifrey bag. I brought water, food, um, diapers, baby clothes. And that's how my journey started. It wasn't like I plan to be a human rights defender or I didn't plan to to become the midwife for the midwifery for for the migrant community. It was just a lifechanging moment where I was there and I couldn't unsee what I was seeing. And

Nam Kiwanuka: You saw a need and then you stepped into help.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Exactly.

Nam Kiwanuka: And Nance. Throughout the documentary, you see the midwives just playing such an integral part of not only taking care of the moms and the babies, but the communities because when you are pregnant, you're it's such an extremely vulnerable time. And if you're in war, that also adds another level of stress. At one point, there was a stat in the documentary that in Afghanistan um, one in 14 women have died in childbirth, more than in the war. What else surprised you the most when you were making this film?

Nance Ari: Surprised me the most? Oh, that's a good question. I'm not easily surprised. I just think the stamina and the hopefulness in situations where you would where you wouldn't think there would be any hope. In Northern Nigeria, these kids and women, they're starving. I mean, there's a scene in the film where you see her measuring a woman's arm and, you know, it literally is the size of, you know, it's tiny. And the the joyfulness with which these women approach their their profession. And I think it just surprised me that when you're in places, you know, in the camps with you, just the hopefulness, I mean, just even the way she speaks just makes you feel like, okay, I'm going to be all right, you know? So, I was really surprised that to find hope. A lot of my work, a lot of my social documentaries don't leave you a with a lot of hope and this one I hope does cuz

Jimea Roas Garcia: Well I just wanted to say that you know when you're transforming communities it sounds like a big thing but it's us who gets transformed first.

Jay Melry: Yeah. I think and it's every time you talk to a midwife it's the same thing.

Jay Melry: I get transformed by the work. I am not who I was when I started and that is all the babies that I've held.

Nam Kiwanuka: How do you change?

Jay Melry: I was pretty hardcore when I started. I was pretty tough. And I think it's just it's almost like drip by kindness drip by hope drip by softness drip. It gets rid of you can't be hard and have a baby in your hands. You You just You can't. And then it's just the smell of a baby.

Nam Kiwanuka: I was going to say that the smell. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. It's so

Jay Melry: They should bottle that. I'll buy it.

Nam Kiwanuka: I know. But it's so particular. And those moments get lost.

Jay Melry: I don't want to slam doctors because they work under terrible conditions. Even here, they really do. But they don't have the time to just take that moment and and and and look after the parents have held the baby to be able to look at a child and have that child look back at you. You are seeing something that is you will not see anywhere else in the world. The way that child looks at you probably I think for the first three or four days is very specific and it changes who you are inside and it makes you softer and more gentle and that's what happened to me.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um well speaking of like that softness that tension hima parts of the documentary uh you were pregnant and you said that you were in denial about being pregnant. What was it like for you to take care of these moms to be while you were also expecting It was very nice to I mean I

Jimea Roas Garcia: It was very nice to I mean I always feel like we are part of the community and that is really humbling and as Jay was saying, we always get to be on our knees to receive a baby and that way we keep ourselves humble and um respecting the mystery of life, the mystery of death, the mystery of the world where babies come from and we welcome babies and yes being pregnant, I have been wonderful because I share with the mothers with all the pregnant persons that we are in the same yeah in the same journey and they get to trust me more because I'm breastfeeding my baby while they are talking about breastfeeding and they have questions and sometimes I'm like, oh yes, I just passed through the same thing and

Nam Kiwanuka: It is very nice to be human to human connecting.

Jimea Roas Garcia: And getting to serve Um, in the same way I wanted to be delivering my own baby. And yeah,

Nam Kiwanuka: No matter what country you were in, um, the midwives had like a laser focus on the mission at hand and Nance, in some of the places you were in were very remote. What are some of the challenges midwives have when working in remote or conflict zones?

Nance Ari: Well, Gulbadan was really I I would say one of the the most severe cases of that. I mean, we're talking days and days to get to her village. And she would walk. I mean, the distances she would the her family members and other women in her village, the distances they have to go to get any help at all to have a baby. I mean, you're talking trudging 3 hours in snow up to your knees. I mean, you see in the film how deep the snow is and and you know, they wear sandals most of the time and it it is, you know, some they only have electricity for part of the day. It is very very tough conditions. These are very very remote villages and I think I mean that's what drove her to become a midwife. So many women are dying out there and I mean right now because of the Taliban and change in government, they've actually made midwayfree training illegal. Yeah. So you're not allowed to train as a midwife. So they're right there. They've how many women have they killed by doing that? So um yeah, it's those are the challenges.

Nance Ari: Uh yeah, I mean Maria is a bit different. She's not really remote, but yet she has to travel through these cartel and gang lines, you know. So, every woman had their challenges, you know.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um, in Nigeria, um, there was a mom and midwife, and the midwife there lost two of her own kids in a Boka Haram insurgency, but she came back to help her community. What did you take? What how did you take that?

Nance Ari: Well, this sounds terrible, but it's typical. I mean I think so many women so many mothers lose their their children in places like that and here you know so and I think it drives you to create change and to not let it happen to anybody else.

Nance Ari: So I mean it is it is a driving force in these women's life

Jay Melry: And I would say it also happens here. Yeah,

Jay Melry: There's I mean the women with whom I'm working, the vast majority of those people have no home to take a child to. And so what we do is we punish poverty and the people most affected by poverty are women. And so if those women do not, there's no housing left in Toronto. No, there is no supportive housing left at all. But trying if you are trying to raise your children and you don't have enough money to do that, then your housing doesn't look very good. And so somebody's going to call child protective services who's going to come in. And if there's no way to find resources, those children will be taken from the home. And if those children, you can watch it happen. If somebody has lost a child, that grief never ends. Not that it does for anybody whose child has died, but they know their child is out there somewhere and somebody else is raising their child. And what we see very often and what I see very often is the more a child is taken from somebody, the more frequently she becomes pregnant because well,

Nam Kiwanuka: I guess they're trying to get that just the sadness upon grief upon grief. But when you're pregnant, at least you're holding your child.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah. Remember Jimea, you said um when I asked and and and it is a common question people would ask me, okay, so you know, they're on a mig why are they why are they having babies? You know, they they have their whole backpack on their back and their other little kid is on their shoulders and why what are they thinking having a baby? It's like you just have to understand that you said to me that it can be a way and often they got pregnant by accident on the migrant trail. It wasn't their their doing.

Jimea Roas Garcia: But also it is because it is a way to ground yourself and create a home wherever you are.

Nam Kiwanuka: And and that just got me. I was like, "Oh, yes." But life also continues. And I only say that because when we were in the camp, um life continued. Yeah. Yeah,

Jay Melry: It wasn't always uh bad days. We laughed. We celebrated birthdays.

Nam Kiwanuka: Babies were born in the camp because life continues. And there's something in the documentary Himemena that you say. You say that it's a human right for every baby to be born in a respected way and at the ceremony of birth. It's the way that we can change the world at the beginning of life. Can you tell me more about that?

Jimea Roas Garcia: Yeah, I feel like that's the way that we're healing the world by every beginning. If we are welcome in the world, if we are um receiving a blessing or a loving moment, a present catching hope.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yes, exactly.

Jay Melry: You catch hope.

Nam Kiwanuka: That would have been a better title, catching hope.

Jay Melry: But that's but it sorry to interrupt but that's exactly what it is

Nam Kiwanuka: Is that you're holding hope

Jay Melry: Even for somebody who whose child may be taken away

Nam Kiwanuka: That's hope for them

Jimea Roas Garcia: And we're healing together because I've served families that passed through the Darian jungle and they left their children there because they couldn't carry their bodies and they didn't have the chance to do a funeral and they just had to keep going and then they finally arrive to the border and they realize oh my children was were there and then I'm pregnant and then I'm having a baby and it is a way to heal at that moment that ceremony be present is something that we can hold space for them to heal those situations that life experience that was terrible the horrors and then start again. And as you just said, life wants to continue. Life will start again. And then there is a moment of hope, of happiness, a moment of yeah, having choices and having a new life arriving into the world. And maybe this time they get to

Nam Kiwanuka: Maybe this time.

Jay Melry: Maybe this time they get to hold like creating their own community. It's like creating community. But it is it's maybe this time.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah.

Jay Melry: Maybe this time. And I think when when we when we treat women with respect or anybody who's giving birth with the respect that they have the power because women having babies are immensely powerful. And so if you respect and you say I see your power, then that that you're not giving something back, but as much as you're polishing that reflection back to the woman, you have this power to do this extraordinary thing and it can be transformative and in my case sometimes not the people look for fairy tale endings in the work that I do and then there often isn't any um people living on the street. you're not changing their life. Um but if you can give them dignity and respect and acknowledge their power where they have none usually and give them access to seeing the hope that they're creating when they see that that they don't have usually that those those things can be transformative for people where they just stand up a little bit taller and say I gave birth. M

Nam Kiwanuka: It's empowering.

Jay Melry: Oh my god.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um one we're almost um wrapping up our conversation, but Nance, I wanted to ask you another scene in the documentary. Uh it was incredible to watch a mother in Nigeria give birth without making a sound. Um what went through your mind when you were filming that?

Nance Ari: Just I very different than myself giving birth. I was definitely not quiet. Yeah. No. Um, I just think it was just honor. I was so honored um that I could watch I could watch and be a part of um cuz I was you only see parts I shot but I also was kind of helping and you know I put the camera down and you know rubbed her back and things like that. I was helping as much as I could. Uh it's interesting you said that because most times when you watch documentaries because uh filmmakers are observing but you put the camera down and you

Nance Ari: I'm not I'm not good at that. I I tell you I could win a Pulitzer with the stuff that I've missed because I put my camera down to help. Um

Nam Kiwanuka: Why help?

Nance Ari: Why help?

Nance Ari: Yeah,

Nance Ari: I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. So there were times there where you know someone needed to bring in the water and someone need and then also when she gave birth uh because she was starting to hemorrhage. Well I don't want to give away everything but uh she the baby was kind of just left you know by herself and I was like is so I grabbed the baby and you know I put my camera down and you didn't bounce. Yeah, like you know, like cuz she was crying and I just didn't want to, you know, didn't want her to feel abandoned because it was that they had to deal with the mom. And

Jimea Roas Garcia: And I would say that protecting those first times, the blueprint, the the arriving uh moments are very important because it is oxytocin. It is the love hormone right there. And holding a baby and explaining like, "Oh, your mom is getting some help. She will be fine. She will be right back to you." And just those precious first moments in life matter forever for the rest of our lives. The way we are born, the way even if babies don't make it, it is important to have the the respect for a mother to hold their child and say goodbye and kiss a baby. And even in those moments, it is very important for mothers, for babies to have that specific moment not taken away.

Nam Kiwanuka: That you were loved.

Jay Melry: It's very true. When the even if a baby has died and the parents holding the baby, if you get out of the way and you stand away, you you will see them. Yes, the grief is extraordinary. It's horrendous. But they'll also they'll kind of stop crying for a minute and you know, you see them playing with the the features on the face and and cupping the head.

Nam Kiwanuka: And they'll rock the baby

Jay Melry: And yeah, they'll rock the baby and talk to the baby because it is in a way that baby lives forever with that person. And if they have that time to know who this child was as much as they can, then that that that changes who they are.

Nam Kiwanuka: Okay. You're going to make me cry, Jay.

Jay Melry: Sorry.

Jimea Roas Garcia: We honor those moments.

Jay Melry: Yeah. Yeah. That we also see, I think, as midwives, it's not just always happiness and and fruition. We see on the other side. we see these mysteries on the other side. You can't un like you say, you can't unsee the the the miracles that you've seen. You can't unsee the grief that you've seen. And you know, there's something over there. And I'm not wanting to be evangelical about it, but somebody asked me once if I believed in God or something bigger than me. And that was like yes work what I do.

Jimea Roas Garcia: We are witnesses of

Jay Melry: Um and also I think birth is oversimplified.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yes.

Jay Melry: It's uh this idea that your body is going to know what to do and when the time comes and in some cases it's true. I did when I was pregnant the first time with I did the birthing classes and I paid attention to it's a fruit size. I should not have I should have been reading parenting books. But I digress. Um, what I thought was really interesting when my body couldn't do what it was supposed to do, uh, quotation marks, I felt as if I had failed in some way, uh, which leads me to, in the documentary, you're wearing a sweatshirt that says the Toronto Birth Center.

Nam Kiwanuka: And the way that, uh, the Toronto Birth Center has a really interesting history. Um, it fought to a lot of people fought to bring that into fruition. Can you tell us can you tell us more about that, please?

Jay Melry: Um, I can't speak to it as somebody who was involved in the in bringing it to fruition. Um, but there were so many people who worked so hard um to bring it to actually being a structure where like there's over a thousand babies been born in there now. And where I work, our clinic is right above that. And I know when a baby's being born down there and it just excites me like you walk into a hospital and birth has been torn out of there. There's no sound. If you come to a Toronto hospital, there's no sound. You can't hear birth because it's not birth that's happening there.

Nam Kiwanuka: It's a medical event,

Jay Melry: A medical procedure.

Jay Melry: Yeah, it's a procedure. Where is if you go to the birth center, these are people having babies.

Nam Kiwanuka: So, lots of sounds.

Jay Melry: So, there's sounds and there's life happening and there's mothers out there making tea for somebody or there's making eggs after the baby's born or it's just this beautiful community and it's

Nam Kiwanuka: There's bringing them a bagel and a beer which is what my my midway does.

Nam Kiwanuka: Love that. But it's also it I have to say that it is indigenous governed

Nam Kiwanuka: Um and it was indigenous designed. The indigenous community in Ontario and in Canada um is finally being given its due and being seen for for the richness and the culture and uh the health that they bring. The things that I was taught by the company because I was working in Mexico and in Texas. They're the ones who taught I mean, yes, they taught me how to catch a baby and do all basically a taxi driver can catch a baby if the baby's coming out. If that's the case, I'm going to digress here. Students hated me because I wouldn't let them catch the baby because when a baby is coming out you the back of the baby's head comes first and if you we've taken this away from families but if you let that child come out, it comes out face down when things are happening in the usual way and then the baby will turn before the shoulders are born and this is when they'll often open their eyes is right there. So, I make sure that somebody in the family should be there. But wait, it's more than that. If you continue to leave that child alone and let nature happen, the baby will, as it comes out, turn all the way around to face up to the person who's having the baby. And as the arms are born, there's a reflex. And who cares what man it was named after? But there is a reflex where the baby will open its arms wide and cry while it's looking up. And this is that invitation

Jay Melry: To parent me, love me, pick me up. I am here. I am yours. And they're looking. And we've taken that something as simple as that as honoring the sacredness of what is happening here and getting out of the way. We've taken so much. So I would I would make sure the head's coming out the right way. Yes, there's no cord. Shoulders going to fit fine. Nobody by the bed. Nobody. If there's a partner, if there's an auntie, if there's a grandmother, that's who should the baby's hands.

Nam Kiwanuka: That bond. So they have that.

Nam Kiwanuka: You almost made me cry, Jay, because I was I was picturing what you were saying and it's just like it's so beautiful to hear cuz that was me. That was the opposite of my

Jay Melry: But if you can give that beautiful but if you can give that to somebody whose child is going to be taken away.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah.

Jay Melry: Then they and this is me just making my point here and you can cut this out. But if they we're leaving it in. If they can be the ones to catch their own baby and pull their own baby up, then that hasn't been taken from them. That hasn't been stolen.

Jimea Roas Garcia: I want to say in Spanish that aloo bring life bring light.

Nam Kiwanuka: And it's kind of like an invisible string between the mother and the child. No matter where they go in the I always say this to my kids that there's an invisible string between us. Wherever you are, I am. you mentioned um the differences of having a baby in a hospital um as opposed to in a something like the Toronto birth center. I wanted to talk a little bit about how the differences are for hospital versus midwifrey. Um who would like to take that?

Jay Melry: I I can just because I'm going to

Nam Kiwanuka: You were talking about loose.

Jay Melry: Yes. And I just want to finish off on that because I've told people this, but I don't know how many babies I've caught. Thousands probably and held newborns. I don't know how many. And I think my hands have a knowledge that my brain doesn't have. My I if I really want to know what position a baby's in, I I have to close my eyes. If I'm turning a baby to make sure it's in a good position, I have to close my eyes because the art is in our hands. But I also think sometimes after a baby's born, if I'm the one who's caught it, if you turn the lights out, our hands will shine because it is so sensual. It's so it's I I lack the words to kind of describe

Nam Kiwanuka: Intuitive sacred.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Yeah. The little is the light,

Jay Melry: But it's it's everything. You smell, you hear, you feel, you touch, you see, and and and it all goes inside you, but it's all you're holding this enormous piece of profound energy in your hands.

Jimea Roas Garcia: One one of my teachers Nicole Franklin Morales she's writing many books about restoring midwifrey and she talks about these other senses that we have as Jay was saying, it's not just the five senses as we know them, it's more is like we are there with our spirit with our emotions with our whole

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah with with wholeness

Jimea Roas Garcia: Protecting those moments and witnessing Yeah. The the moment of Yeah. hormones, oxytocin, love.

Nam Kiwanuka: Yeah.

Jimea Roas Garcia: And even for survivors of sexual assault and for survivors of horrors, that moment is very special and that moment is unique and we get to see that and

Nam Kiwanuka: Again and again. What a gift.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Yes. And they say in Spanish daloo which means bring light. So we bring light into the world and that enlightenment is healing is peace and that begins at birth.

Jay Melry: The other the other difference I just want to say too, having been a part of both a lot, um I think we were talking the other day and someone said most likely if you're in a hospital, if you're very lucky to have your own doctor that you've seen a couple times before, if you've had a healthy, you know, pregnancy, you like most likely are going to be in a room full of strangers. And that to me when you're in in a room with a with a midwife who has come to your home and has seen you there and and you've re you've created a bond with with them and their assistant midwife and um and then they stay with you after and you you know they help you bathe and I mean the nurturing things that happen when when you have a home birth and um you know your your bed is clean and you crawl in bed with your baby and like I say, they bring you a bagel and a beer and

Nam Kiwanuka: And everyone is there and it's it's a nurturing, you know, happy, quiet, maybe dim lit, you know, with lovely music. Kimea had whale music playing the whole time and it sounded so weird in the audio of the film because it was like, you know, you're I'm like, "Oh, what is that noise? Oh, it's the whales." I have to say though that that is also the privilege that we have that we want to be able to make sure that globally people have that privilege.

Jay Melry: Because I think well I know the vast majority of babies born in the world are born into the hands of midwives um and that lack of respect those numbers don't get counted but but

Jimea Roas Garcia: It is true that and also to combine it with what you were saying there is something I think for midwives and maybe doctors I should ask I don't know but for midwives when there is a skill that you didn't learn that is in there that you call upon at times and it's a knowledge that you call upon at times when you know that things are not as they seem or that things will be okay. You can't push through a disaster situation just by hope. You better know what you're doing.

Jay Melry: If you don't know what you're doing, you're not a midwife. You're a bystander catching a baby. So, you must have knowledge. Your hands must know what they're doing. But for the majority of people in the world, those babies are caught by midwives who do have that skill. and all they need are the resources to be able to to have those kinds of births. There's so much poverty in the world and we this disparity the one thing that runs across all of those landscapes is birth and death.

Nam Kiwanuka: They're the two things that human that that's right that make us human.

Jay Melry: And to be able to be attended by somebody with any knowledge at all is in many places considered a real uh privilege.

Nam Kiwanuka: Mhm.

Nam Kiwanuka: I've so enjoyed this conversation. This is an incredible documentary. Thank you so much. Uh congratulations so much. It's I just wanted to give you an opportunity to add anything that you might have that I might I might have missed. Nance, I'll start with you.

Nance Ari: Oh. Um, well, just one thing I would like to know if you do watch the documentary, want want to tell people if you do watch the documentary and you want to do something to help the midwives who are, you know, there's there are statistics out there that are pretty horrific. A woman dies every two minutes in childirth. Um, if you want to do something to help, the International Confederation of Midwives, um, on my page has a has a fund that you can on on deliveryline.com, the deliveryline.com. You can go to our impact page and you can either host a screening or you can uh get some fundraising going in your community to help these midwives. Yeah. I mean, I really would the the whole ma the whole reason you make these films is to create awareness and build bridges and and and change the world. And so

Nam Kiwanuka: We'll also share those links as well.

Nam Kiwanuka: And Himea,

Jimea Roas Garcia: Well, I will I would say support your local midwives and support student midwives is the best way to continue passing this legacy and not letting midwiffrey die is what we're doing. protecting Midwiffrey, protecting our medicines, protecting ancestral knowledge by preserving Midwiffrey.

Nam Kiwanuka: And Jay,

Jay Melry: I mine was incredibly um selfish. I could not wait to meet you. Having seen you in the film, I just recognized so much of what you were saying. I just And it was just that midwiffery kind of, oh, I must meet her. Is this the first time you

Nam Kiwanuka: And we were so excited? I dropped my coffee and I was so excited hugging her.

Nam Kiwanuka: Well, also I mean Jay Jay was a little you were a little hesitant to be in the film. You were

Jay Melry: I was very hesitant.

Nam Kiwanuka: Why?

Jay Melry: Um I'm protective of the people with whom I'm working because there is poverty porn. Do you know what I mean? Poverty porn. Yeah. And so I have been approached by other people. Oh, let me see these people. Well, you're out of the door cuz nobody's talking about folks as these people. This is not, you know, an Oscar for you. Go away.

Nam Kiwanuka: So, why did you say yes to N?

Jay Melry: I think they kind of kept knocking on the door.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Something because it is important to share the human side of the conflicts and the human stories.

Jimea Roas Garcia: Because the narrative right now is that oh there is no migration. Um there's no migration, there are no refugees anymore. Everything is fine. Everyone has access to health. Everyone has the ability to go to the hospital doctor or whatever. But the reality is that we see every day women, pregnant people that are not having access because they lack an ID or birth certificate or they lost everything during difficult times. And that's the people we serve, the community we are providing services. And again, there are different conflicts around the world. And the people serving the providers at the front line is always midwives.

Jay Melry: Yeah. Yeah. It's always midwives. And I But I think also it's important never to forget that conflict happens here. that that in Toronto there is such a disparity that you have people take my hand for one minute. I don't think yours is nice and warm.

Jay Melry: Under the br under the bridges which is where people used to live, they've done something called hostile architecture. And instead of smooth stones where people can at least get a tarp or even cardboard to keep themselves warm as possible in the winter, they'll just put up lines of cardboard. Now the city has put stones so you can't sleep anywhere there.

Nam Kiwanuka: So it's too uncomfortable to sleep.

Jay Melry: Yeah, you can't. You can't. It's pebbles this big against each other all over. And so even the places we have made it such that there are people who have to live under those bridges. Nobody grew up saying oh I want to be addicted to substances. There was always something that attends that. That's what I've learned. Some trauma, some

Nam Kiwanuka: Nature, disaster,

Jay Melry: Conflict, war.

Nam Kiwanuka: Conflict. War.

Jay Melry: Violence.

Nam Kiwanuka: That's right. Being taken from their family, being taken from their culture, being taken from their ancestral knowledge. All of those things have caused people to experience such trauma that that's where they are and then we don't have enough housing for them.

Jimea Roas Garcia: I want to add that it is not them and us.

Jimea Roas Garcia: It is not racism, xenophobia, discrimination. It is all of us every day and for different reasons. It can be myself, my family tomorrow because what is happening everywhere and it can happen to all of us a disaster or something and it can be me, my family tomorrow needing services or

Nam Kiwanuka: Sexual reproductive health access and who's going to deliver that? A midwife.

Nam Kiwanuka: This was Mistreated. Thanks for listening. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcast so you can get notified each time a new episode is available. We would love to hear your feedback. You can write me an email at mistreatedodcast@tvo.org or reach out to me on social media. I have an Instagram comment from our episode unforced and coerced sterilizations. It reads in part, "There are indigenous women who had sterilization who felt forced to do it. I've met some of them. While I choose to be child-free and chose my procedure, I was told I would change my mind. Thank you so much for that comment. I think it speaks to how we should all have the choice to choose. This week's episode was produced by Tiff Lamb and me and edited by Colin Kish. Digital shorts by Ariana Longley. Camera work by Max Tussy. Teleprompting by Christy Mloud. Production support from Jonathan Hollowell and TVO's digital media services team. Lorie F is the executive producer of digital. Stacy Dunis is acting vice president programming and content. Thanks so much for listening.