Traditional ancestral midwifery of the Guarani culture. Construction of dialogues and knowledge

Abstract

Traditional Guarani midwifery has sustained and still sustains the entire ancestral health system of the communities, with millenary knowledge and wisdom that have given life to several generations. It is important to strengthen and defend these practices so that they do not disappear and are not assimilated by the conventional and hegemonic health system, for which professional teams have the great challenge of building from cultural diversity. The intercultural approach in health leads to broaden the field of action and to analyze the methodological and pedagogical tools to promote rapprochement and complementarity between both medicines. In this article, a synthesis will be provided from the research from the nursing praxis and in a human rights approach of the Indigenous Peoples, on the subject of the Traditional Ancestral Midwifery of the Peasant and Indigenous Mbya Guarani, taking into account the specific cultural practices of each territorial identity, in the communities, in order to understand the needs and the contributions of the ancestral knowledge of the wise men and women of this population. The author declares herself to be a professional of Guarani origin, whose family traditionally practiced midwifery and ancestral birth medicine in the region of Fulgencio Yegros and Taruma Paraguay.