High maternal mortality rates in Latin America are an issue that affects indigenous communities disproportionately when compared to their non-indigenous counterparts. In Ecuador, the Andean Kichwa indigenous community faces compounding obstacles in receiving intercultural childbirth services. In 2008, the Ecuadorian Constitution put into effect a new term that expresses the integration of indigenous culture into dominant Western Ecuadorian society. The term interculturality is used to refer to different facets of society including healthcare. An approach to pregnancy and childbirth informed by intercultural ideals is necessary to lower maternal mortality rates and narrow the rift between the two distinct health models.
The model in place to lower maternal mortality nationally, and specifically in indigenous communities, consists of a top-down approach overseen by the Ministerio de Salud Pública. The purpose of this research is to emphasize the need for a transition to a new health model that stresses the support and collaboration of indigenous community organizations that focus on combatting maternal mortality. The justification for this claim comes in the form of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the Instagram of the Parteras di Anaku, a group of traditional midwives from Cotacachi, Ecuador by means of the software MaxQDA.
The work, experience, and knowledge of the Parteras di Anaku have made a tangible impact on lowering maternal mortality in their direct community and highlights their increasingly widespread influence through endorsing an intercultural approach to childbirth. They use social media as a strategic tool in which to create educational outreach and empowerment and have made visible the urgency of maternal deaths in indigenous communities. Their community action is integral in creating change in favor of intercultural birthing practices and will manifest in humanized pregnancies and births for indigenous women in Ecuador.