Decolonizing Childbirth: Inuit Midwifery and the Return of Delivery to the Canadian North

Abstract

Since the 1970s, the mandatory evacuation of Inuit women to southern Canada for hospitalized childbirth has resulted in many negative impacts on communities including a loss of culture in the form of traditional knowledge and midwifery practices, negative health and social outcomes due to emotional, physical, and economic stressors, and a loss of autonomy and decision-making in pregnancy and childbirth. Furthermore, it is part of a larger historical pattern of Western biomedicine enforced on northern populations as a method of colonization and assimilation. Using the framework of colonial governmentality, this research examines two Inuit midwifery programs currently operating in Inuit land-claim areas of Northern Canada—the Inuulitsivik Maternities in Nunavik, QC and the Rankin Inlet Birthing Centre in Rankin Inlet, NU. A social determinants of health framework is applied to identify the ways in which Inuit midwifery programs provide a holistic and culturally respectful childbirth option by addressing social determinants in a way that the mandatory evacuation system cannot. These programs address maternal health in a holistic community-based model, taking into account cultural and social determinants of health, and provide a viable way of returning birth to the North. This is a return of both the physical birth event and a restoration and revitalization of Inuit childbirth knowledge to the community. Inuit midwifery further works as a force for decolonization, taking into account the historical trauma of colonial medicine and providing a model for Indigenous midwifery systems across Canada.