Describe current health care problems of the Hispanic populations.
HEALTH and ILLNESS in the Hispanic Populations ■ 303
Other folk healers include the materia, or spirit channeler, and the partera, or lay midwife. The parteras continue to practice today, but their numbers are dwindling. Box 12–1 describes the scope of the partera’s practice.
Box 12–1
Parteras
In Mexico and South Texas, there is a long history of the use of midwives, or parteras. The practice of midwifery predates Cortes. The goddess Tlozoteotl was the goddess of childbirth, and the midwives were known as Tlamatqui-Tuti. A partera is viewed as a HEALER by many members of the Mexican American and Mexican communities. She (most are women, although currently obstetri- cians from Mexico are providing this service in South Texas) is described as an individual who has the ability to HEAL and is outgoing, warm, gentle, caring, and cooperative. The partera’s duties include (1) giving advice to the pregnant woman, (2) giving physical aid, such as treating any illness the woman experiences during pregnancy, (3) guiding the woman through her pregnancy in terms of nutri- tion or activities she can and cannot do, and (4) being in attendance during labor and delivery.
Patients are most often referred to parteras by their friends or relatives, and a partera with a good reputation is always busy. Some parteras receive re- ferrals from the health department with which they register, some advertise in the local newspaper or telephone book, and some have signs on their homes or clinics (Figure 12–14).
The parteras avoid delivering women with high blood pressure, anemia, a history of diabetes, multiple babies, and transverse presentations. Some parteras also prefer to send women with breech presentations to the hospital. If an un- familiar woman in labor appears at their door in the middle of the night who is very poor with no place to go to deliver, most claim they will take her in.
Most parteras keep records of their deliveries. Included in these records are such data as the name of the mother, date, time of admission, stage of labor, time in labor, contractions, time of delivery, presenting part, time of delivery and condition of the placenta, and physical condition of the mother and baby.
The amount of prenatal care the parteras deliver ranges from a lot to a little. In general, the mothers seek assistance during their third or fourth month of pregnancy. When the partera’s assistance is sought, the mother is sent either to the health department or to a doctor for routine blood work. The partera is able to follow the mother’s case and gives her advice and massages. One im- portant service that the partera performs is the repositioning of the fetus in the womb through massage.
A partera may give several forms of advice to the pregnant woman. For example, she may advise the woman who is experiencing pica (the craving for and ingestion of nonfood substances, such as clay and laundry starch) to pur- chase solid milk of magnesia in Mexico. The milk of magnesia tastes like clay,