While working with traditional elders in May of 1998, a circle of Diné (Navajo) grandmothers raised concerns about the threat (and consequences) of losing the knowledge of traditional natural childbirth practices among their people.

It is a well-known and documented fact that Native Americans living on reservations have some of the highest rates of malnutrition, birth defects, fetal alcohol syndrome, and teenage pregnancies in the country.

Traditional midwives have preserved time-tested ways of caring for women and children during the childbearing cycle, implementing techniques that are recognized as the safest, most sensible and practical techniques in use. Current midwifery practices integrate traditional ways with research and technology to provide services that can reduce medical complications, child abuse and neglect.

With this project, the IPP traveled amongst the Diné of the Navajo Reservation, honoring the concerns of these silver-haired grandmothers using video and audio equipment to record in their words, methods, foods and medicinal botanicals that have sustained their culture over countless generations. As most of these midwives and healers are in the nineties, it is critical to document their knowledge while there is still time. Such documentation has provided a means to pass on the wisdom of these elders to their descendants, and to empower native women to make informed choices about how to bring forth new life without sacrificing safety and to embrace traditional practices.