Marissa Bolaños joins us today to talk about birth in Latin America, women’s movements and creating change through rage.
Stay tuned for the full season in September, subscribe to receive updates here!
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Marissa Bolaños joins us today to talk about birth in Latin America, women’s movements and creating change through rage.
Stay tuned for the full season in September, subscribe to receive updates here!
www.bebomia.com
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Twitter.
The moms of the victims of femicides go to the front of the march. And they're the ones that are leading the march. And that's like the main thing. Okay. We're angry about a lot of things. We're angry that we cannot have an abortion. We are angry that mothers are judged in such unfair standards. We're angry about the fact that our children are being taken away in court systems, but mainly we're angry about the fact that these women have not their children with them because they were murdered for being women that men think that they have a right to.
Narrator:You are listening to the Hot+Brave podcast with Bianca Sprague, from Bebo Mia, where you will hear brave stories, hot topics, and truth bombs that will either light fire to your rage or be the balm you need for your soul.
Bianca:Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hot+Brave podcast. I'm your host, Bianca Sprague and today we are joined by Marissa Bolaños, the founder of Womb Revolution, who is an incredible activist, birth worker, infant and family sleep specialist, birth videographer, and it all around incredible human. That's quite the list. She was born and raised in Mexico. She now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her two sons and I had the pleasure of meeting Marissa almost eight years ago, um, when she started with her first Bebo Mia program, since then she's taken, I think almost all of them. She's a massive support to the Bebo Mia community as she mentors our up and coming birth workers and does it so beautifully. She is the creator of the podcast, La Revolución del Parto, where she brings attention back to home birth and focuses on stories of people who are struggling to preserve their autonomy outside of the hospital system. Hello Marissa, thank you for joining us. Thank you
Marissa:for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Bianca:So Marissa's somewhat of a podcasting expert. I just wanna put that out and if anybody speaks Spanish head over and have a listen, um, she's also a massive contributor to getting this project off the ground. So I wanna start by saying Marissa is incredible. She is our podcast editor, and she is just finding literally any channel to do this incredible work to preserve and protect and celebrate folks as they go through their reproductive health, um, journeys. And one of the things I wanted Marissa to come on and join, um, to talk about is let's like starting doing some of the comparison of what's happening when we're looking at birth in Latin America. Um, and I think it's really important to have this conversation because so much of what we're talking about is so centered on this like this American system that sometimes dabbles in like what's happening in Canada or dabbles in what's happening in Australia, New Zealand, England. Um, but really there's like magic happening in Latin America that I wish these other countries and nations and regions would take up because there's this like fight for preservation that is happening, that there's pockets happening in these other places. But for the most part, I'd say there's like a general like complacency and compliance to our healthcare providers. So Marissa let's talk about Latin America and what is what's happening with birth right now.
Marissa:Yeah. Well, first of all, I would like to start saying like, uh, this is something that I noticed a long time ago like in my twenties, like I started like noticing, um, places, places where things were the worst also have the most beautiful opposition. So I think like it's very important to start off with that because yes, there is a lot of magic happening in Latin America, but the reason why is because things are really bad. Like in the mainstream, you know? Mm-hmm and I think we see that all the time, like with political stuff, like I saw it a lot when I was witnessing occupy unfold in the United States and I was just like, "wow! people are really stepping up" and I'm like, oh yeah. It's because things are more visibly wrong. And I think that's happening in Latin America is that we have been understanding and giving voice to people and like making it more visible that, um, that levels of obstetric violence are happening are just really high. And the, the experience that most people are having within the medical system in Latin America is so horrific that the opposition had to be really, really strong.
Bianca:Yeah. So, so it's in, in response to the bullshit.
Marissa:Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. And I think that's, um, the gift that we find in the middle of the shit, you know? Yeah. Sometimes things are so bad and then people are just like, yeah, we're not gonna sit around. We are creating something new and that's kind of what happening. Um, the history of birth in Latin America is very interesting. If anybody wants to go, if anybody speaks Spanish and wants to check it out, like I do have a link about the history of midwifery and how this is about Mexico, specifically. But when Mexico became like independent from, from Spain, the midwives attended all the births and then they started like training doctors and wanting to like, have like a nation of like professionals, but nobody could train these doctors to attend births except midwives. So midwives were the ones that were showing the doctors how to do things. And the doctors were in good relationship with the midwives. And then once the doctors got the knowledge that they needed they kind of casted the midwives away and started being less nice to them and taking a lot of like their place and their status in the community. And then they started kind of like getting vilified, its like "all these like dirty women that don't know anything that are indigenous" and people started having their babies more at the hospital in the hands of doctors. But, you know, that's originally who trained these doctors and then they started like, kind of like taking away the humanity from that process and making it more streamlined. Right? Like you're going to the hospital and we want you out of here as soon as possible so that we can free that bed so that another person can give birth
Bianca:The efficiency of birth, you know? Yeah. How efficient it is.
Marissa:Exactly.
Bianca:And so there was essentially just a commodification of this, you know, beautiful wisdom that had been around for centuries.
Marissa:Yeah. Then, then it became a matter of delegitimizing midwives mm-hmm and even criminalizing them in some cases. And it's, it's been like, kind of like in decline, you know, there is, uh, a lot of talk about this. Like some people say, like, it is almost like a, a thing of the past. There was a documentary that came out a few years ago about like the last midwives in Costa Rica . And a lot of the midwives are just like really, really old and nobody wants to continue their work because most of the, um, the way that people approach midwives is like mostly people that are very low income. So, you know, like being a midwife very often in indigenous communities will mean you won't be, you won't be making any money or you will be making very little. And, uh, if, if a baby dies, which we know happens in the hospital, happens at home, then, uh, you can end up being incarcerated, you know? It is very, uh, it has become like very complicated, but then within this, there started to be like a resurgence where more people are just like, yeah, we cannot lose this. We have to fight for preserving it. We have to listen to these ladies that are sometimes very, very old and they just cannot attend as many births and they have to pass on their knowledge. We cannot let this get lost. And then also people started just getting really tired of being so mistreated in the hospital system and start looking for alternatives. So things are changing. There's a lot more midwifery schools coming up. They're like making it into like an official career where you go and you have to do like the four years of studying, and then the social service. There is like a moment right now where we're kind of like in this gray area, specifically in Mexico, where midwifery is not completely legal, but it's also not illegal. So it's like a space in between. Yeah. And some, some people really want to, uh, regularize it, just make it more official. And some people are like, yeah, like actually we should not do that because then that's gonna mean we are gonna have to follow some of these rules that we don't really believe in. So
Bianca:Go with choice too, fight for choice too. Don't regulate. I mean, I know that that's a controversial topic, but I mean, I know that a lot of the magic of midwifery gets erased with the regulation. You just, um, your hands get tied in so many places and I have many midwife friends here in Canada and they say like, yeah, it's great as far as there's certain benefits to it. But like, there's so many things we can't do anymore. Mm-hmm and that this like wisdom gets lost because you're you're constrained by the rules of your governing body, which here in Canada is the SOGC and in the US is ACOG.
Marissa:Um, yeah. In Trinidad and Tobago, I remember I interviewed this, this person that gave birth there and her midwife she was telling me like in Trinidad and Tobago is legal, but like, there are so many rules. Mm-hmm if you are a first time, mom, you cannot have your baby outside of the hospital. Outside of the hospital birth, it's only for people that are already proved their capacity to birth.
Bianca:You earned it. You get to go wherever you choose. Cause you've showed us you can do this biological thing.
Marissa:yeah. So, you know, I mean, and it's very different. Every country in Latin America has their own circumstances and it has a lot to do with like the training. In Chile, for instance, the people that are training to like become an obstetric nurse, you are completely free to deliver babies at home. Like there is nothing extra that you need to do. It is within the... like, there is no punishment. There is no, no repercussion for someone that studied to be an obstetric nurse that can go into the hospital and work over there to start their own practice and, and deliver babies at home.
Bianca:hmm. Yeah. It's interesting. Like the branches that come out, um, I mean, we can see this in the US as well. Like in Canada, you're regulated or you're not. Like it's a binary as far as midwives. And there's folks that go rogue like Gloria Lemay on the West Coast that refuses to regulate. And she's like, just keep arresting me. I think overall, as long as we can keep preserving these amazing stories and these traditions and these practices that these wise folks hold that had it passed down and like, that's the fear that I have that yeah, that's gonna be lost.
Marissa:Yeah. It's I mean, it's definitely changing it's it's morphing. Um, but what I know for sure is that people want something different. And the desire for a different kind of treatment is so strong that there is also like hospitals that are starting to step up and like offer better treatment and there is also even doctors, like there's, uh, several groups of doctors in different parts of Mexico, at least that attend homes births, which is something that I don't think is even legally possible for someone to be like, "I'm an obstetrician and I am gonna start my own practice and deliver babies at home". Like, I don't know that that is something that could happen in the States, for instance. No. Yeah. But in Mexico is fine. Like they are doctors and they will like go to your house with a pediatrician and with a nurse and they will, um, you know, follow your guide. And they, there, there are certain things that they will still do that people don't want that are like very medicalized mm-hmm. But, um, you know, like it can be a very nice middle point for someone that is kind of feeling like I don't want to go to a hospital and be treated that way. I want to be, be at my home, but I'm also scared. So yeah, there is a lot of options and lots of different ways that things are unfolding in Latin America when it comes to birth. But what it is very clear is that people are just sick and tired of the way that they are being treated in the hospital. And unfortunately, a lot of these alternatives are very inaccessible for people that are low income. Um, and. At least in Mexico, the way that it is divided is like we have the public system and we have the private system. So if you cannot pay for having your baby in a private hospital, you're gonna go to a public hospital and the there is like different kinds of abuse in, in each one. Right? So if you go to a public hospital to, to start, like if you're having a vaginal birth, you're having an episiotomy, it doesn't matter if you need it or not. Everybody has an episiotomy. If they are giving birth vaginally, people are. Suffering physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse. They get told horrible things. They get, um, denied food or water sometimes for days, they are not allowed to have any support people with them throughout the whole entire time. No husband, no friend, no family member, no one. Uh, I mean that started shifting a little bit. And then with the pandemic it regressed and I really don't know exactly what the status is right now, but historically it's how it has been. And the C-section rates are high, you know, high, like higher than they should be. Like. I think that they are about 30, 36%. Um, but definitely not as high as in the private hospitals. Um, in the private hospitals, we have C-section rates that are sometimes 90, 80%. If you want to avoid the kind of mistreatment that people are having in the public hospital, um, people say, well, the option is to go to a private hospital and the private hospital doctor just says, don't suffer, have a C-section and here is the date that I'm gonna schedule you for it, and I'll see you then. Yeah. So. Uh, people got tired of having only two options.
Bianca:Yeah. Yeah. So they're exploring a third. When I was living down in the Caribbean, I found it so fascinating. I asked everybody about birth because, you know, my obsession
Marissa:Birth worker!
Bianca:Birth worker to the core. And I found it really fascinating to hear from women who were wildly under-resourced that like, they have to save to go to the hospital. And I kept asking, like, why aren't you birthing at home? Cuz it's like as close to free as you can. And the same attitude that there was something like archaic, like that's old, like there were so many areas still untouched by like North American ways, but this like birth, somehow became the thing that was, that was kind of keeping pace with what was happening in the US. And it just it's always feels so counterintuitive to me to be like, you don't have the resources and, but yet you reject the free option, which I think the same too, is the folks who have, you know, formula introduced at the highest rate are the people that can't afford to consistently feed with formula.
Marissa:Mm-hmm
Bianca:And so I think it's such a, I mean, I know why it happens and it's, you know, all of, all of the, not caring for our entire populations, but like I find it just fascinating, the rejection of the thing that would make the most sense for all other buckets of, of one's life or socioeconomic status.
Marissa:Yeah. I mean, there has been a lot of it that has to do with colonization, wanting to be in this space of progress, right? Like, like looking back and just being like, well, yeah, home birth was like in the past. Midwives are just like these old, old ladies, um, that just like is not modern, so to speak. But there is also some, some of it that has been like very strategically designed by the government, um, to keep people in the clinics. Right? So like for instance, one of the things is like, if you don't give birth in the clinic, then you don't have access to like the canasta básica, which is like a basic basket of necessities, like with beans and oil and things like that. So you have to be within this system where they will know, uh, when your baby was born, how much they weighted, that they kind of like get their little number, right. The whole story about birth certificates is a whole other conversation but it's very hard sometimes for people to access birth certificates, um, if they don't give birth in the hospital. And that is even the case for women that have professional midwives. So there will be midwives that went and studied like their four years of school and they did their service and they have their title. And they're like within the system of being a professional midwife in Mexico and they will still have some struggle on being able to get, um, birth certificates for their clients. I interviewed a person in the Northern, in a city in Northern Mexico that was saying that in order to get your birth certificate, when she got her second baby, you had to go right after you had your baby, you had to go to a hospital and they had to do a cavity search to make sure
Bianca:No!
Marissa:Yes. Yeah, yeah. And she was like,
Bianca:That's the worst trade for a birth certificate I ever heard.
Marissa:Yeah, she was saying like, can you see, my tits are dripping colostrum and I'm nursing this baby. And like, I'm bleeding. Like, do you really need to put your fingers inside of my vagina in order to provide me with a certificate that my child exists and is in my arms? She said the birth was great, but the process of everything that happened after the birth was the part that was traumatic and difficult, you know, like you don't want to be a person that gave birth a few hours ago going into this hospital where you're like mistreated and
Bianca:yeah.
Marissa:Yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's almost like they, they are like, "oh, darn we didn't get to abuse you while you were giving birth."
Bianca:Here's your tax
Marissa:I guess we'll have to do it now!
Bianca:It's your abuse tax. Like you avoided all of this, so here's, we're gonna catch up. Yeah. It like makes it unavoidable. Um, I mean, we see similar situations, like at the end, when I see transfers of care for like dot i's and cross t's, um, that I was like, we did everything like to, so we didn't have to do this. And now. This, we have to go back in and it's, it's like, they, they need to make sure they got us.
Marissa:Yeah. But I will say that, again, like things are changing and there is like, so much about it that is new, that people can and have, um, not necessarily easily, but they have done it, this person that I interviewed about the, the birth certificate and all these things, she, she told me about the whole process of how she was like,"this is completely unacceptable. This should not be the way that it is". And they got a bunch of women together, signatures, movement, going to talk to people and they changed it. They changed it so that now you don't need to do that. If you are processing your birth certificate for your baby, that was born outside of the hospital in that specific city. I wish that it was more like let's apply it to the whole country but, uh, you know, at least like in a small scale, people see a problem, they mobilize around it and they, there is a lot that we can do. And there is a lot that is changing and shifting.
Bianca:So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the mobilization of women. Um, as we're talking all about rage here as our summer Sizzler moving into season one, which is, you know, really getting under what this feeling is what we can do with it. You know, how can we, how can we take this suffering out and get us over to change and action, and, you know, move it through our bodies and move it through society and, and get some really awesome things on the other side. So when we are looking at it, one of the things that, um, I would love if you shared about is what's happening with this rage from obstetric violence. And, you know, we had a chance to talk before we were recording here about domestic violence and the rates and what's happening in, in Latin America.
Marissa:Yeah.
Bianca:So, you know, what is it, what is it looking like? For, you know, in response to essentially the lack of safety and protection for folks that identify as women.
Marissa:There is a lot of different things. I do want to say I wish there was more rage against obstetric violence. Uh, I think when I had the chance to go to Mexico this last March, and I did not plan it this way, but I happened to be there, uh, on March 8th, international women's day. And they do an incredible march, incredible march. And I was kind of scared. Like my friend was like, come on, let's go to the march. And I'm like, uh, I don't know. I mean, like, it gets kind of intense, you know, march like protest in Mexico City is like a massive city and it just kind of gets intense and I was kind of worried about it. Um, and like, it's a huge crowd, right? Like I don't, like, I haven't seen a crowd since the pandemic started. That sounds intense. But, um, I finally was convinced to go to this march and it was incredible. It was so beautiful. It was very sad too, it was enraging. There was a lot of crying and a lot of, um, yeah, a lot of rage that was going on. Mm-hmm but basically like, I saw so many things that people were angry about and that I didn't see anything about obstetric violence. And I'm just like next year I wanna come over and I'm gonna plan a committee that is just gonna march for women to not be abused during childbirth.
Bianca:I'm here for it.
Marissa:Yeah, let's go.
Bianca:let's go.
Marissa:But, um, but there is a lot of other things that there was a lot of movement around. There is a lot of talk and anger about the whole situation with abortion because in Mexico, abortion is not legal the whole, whole country. So there are certain places that if you are like, you're gonna need to travel into a different state, or you're gonna have to travel into Mexico City to have an abortion. It's criminalized. Like, you know, like you can go to jail for longer for having an abortion than the person that raped you and made you pre pregnant, you know?
Bianca:Mm-hmm that tracks.
Marissa:It's, uh, there's a lot of rage around that around the, the lack of abortion rights in the country. There's a lot of rage about the violence that women are suffering in Latin America. I, I started seeing this when I was probably like in middle school is when I started kind of having a little bit of awareness of that because when I was in middle school is when a lot of, um, young girls started disappearing and then sometimes they would find them, dead. Or sometimes they wouldn't. There are so many people that are just disappeared. They don't know. And this happens to men and women, but it happens a lot more to women in as cases that are specifically towards, um, gender. Right? So a lot of rapes and a lot of, um, domestic partnerships like that get into violence and lots of women that are killed by their husbands or their boyfriends or their exes. Um, so that, that is a big part of the rage and the marches. So like a lot of the people that I saw marching had like photos of different women that were murdered by their intimate partners. And everybody's like marching and crying. There is a lot of crime against trans women. There was a whole, um, part of the march that was all for the rights of trans women talking about the violence that they suffer in Latin America. And I think that it's so inspiring to see these people standing up and saying like, "this is not acceptable". And I do wonder, like, why won't we see that in the United States as much, you know, because there is a lot of, um, horrible things that are happening to women here too. But for some reason, it's just not something that we are allowed to be angry about, I don't really know.
Bianca:Mm-hmm
Marissa:And I think a lot of it comes from like the comparison, you know, of just like, oh, it's so much worse in other places. But, um, um, I think also like in Mexico, there is like, so much more openness about sexism. Like, you know, it sounds terrible, but I actually kind of like it better sometimes when I go to Latin America and people are like openly sexist because I can confront them. Mm-hmm and I can address it as opposed to
Bianca:It's less insidious.
Marissa:Yeah. As opposed to these people over here, like saying quote, unquote, all the right things and just being like, oh yeah, women are equal, but like still perpetuating these like micro violences. And I think in, in Mexico, it's a lot more, there's a lot more awareness, at least in the younger generations about how these microaggressions very quickly can turn into "my ex-boyfriend killed me". Yeah. You know? And. It's visible and we see it in the news and we see how the government is not really doing anything about it. How a lot of the numbers are messed with. Very recently, there was a very horrible case of this young woman in the Northern Mexico that left a party, got in a cab, was dropped off in the freeway, and then there was one picture of her before she went missing. And then she went missing for several days and they were like, oh, we cannot find her. We cannot find her. And then they finally found her and they were like, oh, she fell out and she died. And it was not true. Like there was a lot of talk about that because there was a lot about like what the authorities are officially saying and what they're pretending to do against, like what actually happened. We don't really know, but the authorities will present this story and it's just like, oh, you know, don't worry, it was an accident. Mm-hmm , there are so many women that are getting murdered and a very small percentage of them are categorized as femicide. They're just like, oh, well, you know, like she, she just died.
Bianca:Sometimes we just die. Yeah. Sometimes we die on our way homes and
Marissa:yeah, "it had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman". And then they, yeah, they like kind of obscure that data. Um, and. People know it and they are pissed about it. And people are tired of not being able to walk back home without the worry of like, are you gonna arrive? Um, yeah. So there is a lot of anger about that and that anger turns into very concrete things. There is a movie that came out... I don't remember, like a few years ago. It wasn't the Cannes festival, but it was about a mother whose daughter got murdered by the, her kidnappers and the authorities did nothing about it. And she was the one that spent years like chasing them down, like cutting her hair, dying her hair, like using disguises, like going around, like changing her voice until she found and killed some of the people that killed her daughter until she got murdered in front of her house. And the government was like doing nothing. The officials were doing nothing to help her. She was the one that had to go chase for her justice. Yeah. And it happened, you know, it actually has happened twice in Northern Mexico with women, with mothers that are like, no, "I'm not going to allow the death of my daughter to go without any justice". And when we were at the women's march, that's what they do. Like they have the, the moms of the victims of femicides go to the front of the march. And they're the ones that are leading the march. And that's like the main thing that is like, okay, we're angry about a lot of things. We're angry that we cannot have an abortion. We are angry about the fact that mothers are judged in such unfair standards. We're angry about the fact that our children are being taken away in court systems that just justify bullshit from men. But mainly we're angry about the fact that these women have not their children with them because they were murdered for being women. That men think that they have a right to.
Bianca:You should, you should feel my body right now, Marissa. Like I'm just feeling all the feelings about this.
Marissa:It's it's very intense. It's very intense.
Bianca:It's very intense,
Marissa:you know, going through the march, that's why it's just like, you cannot avoid feeling this like energy vibrating, all around. Fear and anger. And, and of course there were like cops and there was tear gas and there, there was at the end, like it definitely got like into a little bit of, um, violence and sometimes like the government will plant someone that will start like a conflict so that they can say like, oh, you know, those crazy violent feminists. And there's a lot of people that really are against these marches and against feminism kind of like portraying it, like, well, "they're accomplishing nothing by doing graffiti in the street", but I thought it was incredible. We were like, just walking through a street and there were women that were spray painting, like on the walls, the name of their rapists.
Bianca:Yeah, I'm here for that.
Marissa:I was just like, wow, like that's so powerful. You know, some people that have never been able to speak up against this. And right now having this wall full of names of these people that just go about their lives and they're just completely protected by this systems, naming them and saying, "this is not acceptable."
Bianca:Yeah, I have some names to put up on the wall while we go down. I'll get this spray paint.
Marissa:Yep. Yep. Let's let's do it.
Bianca:oh, Marissa. I'm having a time. I think it's interesting as we talk about, you know, all the ways that we're harmed. Like women are rarely, if, if ever safe in our like physical bodies, um, we always have a vigilance and like, you know, an awareness that bad shit is gonna happen to us or could happen to us. And I think it's interesting how we, how, like what you're saying, we parse them apart. You know, when we were talking about how did we lose home birth and these traditional practices, and we see it in the, in the, in the explanation of progress and colonization, but like, why did we pick that one? Because like, there's lots of things throughout, you know, The Afro-Caribbean community, throughout Latin America, that like didn't get impacted by, by, um, you know, capitalism in the same way. Like that was one of the, that's one of the reasons why it's probably some of my favorite places on the planet, because like those true feminist values come through of like community and like, you know, everyone takes care of one another and you eat together and you look, take care of each other's children. And, um, like you jump out and help, like, no matter what's happening, like all these things that are lost when we. Try to bring that back up to Canada and the US. And so when we look at this at birth, keeping pace with this Canadian and American quote standard, and like how much of a pass it gets, I find it like so interesting. Like why did we choose that to be compliant with the system? Or like to see it as progress or to like, not think it's so bad.
Marissa:Well, first of all, like there is no way that we can talk about home births in Latin America without talking about, um, maternal and fetal death. It is what people are the most scared of. Yeah. They are really worried about dying during childbirth. And I think like that happens even here in the States. And even when we're talking about people that are the least likely to die, who are white women that are wealthy, there is still that fear that you might die during childbirth. Like people have that fear very ingrained, and we really want to soothe ourselves and think that we're doing everything that we can to not die. Mm-hmm and. Everything else is just kind of minimized, right? Yeah. So it's like, and that's why we talk so much about when someone suffers a traumatic birth, there is so much about it that's just like, well, "But you're fine. You survived."
Bianca:You're alive. You baby's alive.
Marissa:You're alive. You're a healthy mom with a healthy baby. That's all that matters. Yeah. Um, and we have like it, it program people to think that in order to have a healthy baby and a healthy mom, you must be humiliated dehumanized and like mistreated. Especially in Latin America. Mm-hmm I have interviewed so many people that would tell me, like, you know, ever since I was a little kid, I would hear so much about how birth is bad. Like not bad, but birth is... Ugly
Bianca:Scary.
Marissa:That's that's the word that they use. Like birth is ugly. Birth is gonna be painful. It is gonna, you're gonna suffer through it. But then at the end, everything is worth it. There is this idea. It's just like you get such a good reward that it doesn't really matter. And I, I remember this person specifically that I interviewed, I remember her so much because she talked about how, um, she heard these stories like her whole life and when she actually went through childbirth and it was traumatic and it was abusive, and she was like, "well, you know, I already knew that, like I knew that that's how it was gonna be. Why am I so upset? Why am I so upset?" Yeah. And she would like, feel so much shame about being, um, so upset about birth, that she would cry behind closed doors. She would hide from her husband, hide from her mom, wait until the baby was sleeping and she would just like lay in bed and cry and re-live the whole entire situation. And she would be feeling a lot of guilt about that. Mm-hmm , it's like, I should not feel so much sadness and so much, uh, grief around this because I have a, a healthy baby and I'm alive.
Bianca:Yeah.
Marissa:And it took her such a long time to understand that it is not okay to be abused during birth. That is not necessary. Right. And that's the idea that people have like that, that pain, that suffering is necessary. We are afraid of dying. And we think that it's necessary to be mistreated in order to stay alive.
Bianca:Just such a complicated entry point because it's rooted in like Christian values, which even folks like I've had no contact with the Christian faith outside of living in a Christian like centered country. Um, and so we have this original sin all wrapped up. We also see it like almost like a godly purpose for women to reproduce.
Marissa:Yeah.
Bianca:So it's like part of it's like your rite of passage and, and their system systematically breaks us. Like people are like,"it's a broken system". I'm like, no, it's a perfect system that breaks us. And, um, we also don't think it's that bad. Like when they're like, we're just gonna do a little episiotomy, we're just gonna grab the vacuum or the forceps, or, um, we're just gonna give you a little Pitocin, not knowing what it's gonna do to you or your baby mm-hmm . And so, like, we don't see these things as... we don't talk about them with the seriousness and urgency that they deserve. I also wanna put a caveat that Marissa and I both I'm gonna speak for both of us here. Do not have any judgment of any one of those, aforementioned tools. Um, it's that they are, the, the risk is not discussed with people. There's rarely a choice around it. There's not a question at the end of it. It's a statement. We're just going to get this. We're just going to give you this. We're just gonna do this to you, with you, for you. Um, and that's where we take issue. So how do you choose to birth is your business as long as our hope for you is that it's autonomous, and informed
Marissa:informed
Bianca:mm-hmm and protected and celebrated as you go through that journey. I just wanna add that. Um, so, you know, bringing back to what you were saying, um, we have this like minimization around the experience and the focus on, like, you've done, you upheld your ultimate goal of your life, which is to, to have a child come from your body.
Marissa:Mm-hmm yeah. I mean, it's just so much of everything that you said. I mean, Latin America is very Catholic mm-hmm and there is the big figure that I always think about, uh, of how much damage and how much, um, also how much wholeness and wonderfulness there is within the Virgin Mary. Right. But we don't call her Virgin Mary. We call her, um, Virgen de Guadalupe. So she's like a brown, uh, Virgin. Actually the Spaniards thought it was great to like integrate this character because there, there was so much adoration of like Mother Earth and like that divine feminine. And they were like, oh, perfect. Let's just throw in the Virgin over there and like substitute it. Right. And so many indigenous cultures and like the holidays around the, the Virgin are, the holidays that were already practiced in indigenous cultures. So like, it kind of like merged well mm-hmm , but there was a lot that we did lose in that process where, um, you know, Tonantzin was this goddess of, of fertility and, and the Earth. And she wasn't necessarily like a sacrificial mother. And that's what the Virgin is. She's like the perfect mother, so perfect that she didn't even have sex, you know, like she's not, yeah. She like never lost her purity. And she like is so giving that she even gives her child for the salvation of humankind. Right? Yeah. So like, there is like this figure of like, if you want to be a good mother, you will do whatever is required of you and you are willing to sacrifice. You will do whatever you can for your children. Even if that means. Suffering and being humiliated and being mistreated and being physically abused or being emotionally abused. Um, the hospitals can be really, really, really horrible. I remember reading a story, uh, after I gave birth of this like 17 year old, who was talking about how she was treated in the birth room and they would tell her like, "oh, is that how you were screaming when you were opening your legs now just comply." Right? So people hear horrible, horrible things during birth. And it's just this idea that it's just like, you, you can endure all of this because this is your initiation to motherhood. Yeah. You being a mother is putting up with all these things because ultimately is whatever is the best for your children. So I think birth is a very good choice for a system that wants to control women. Because if you are being initiated into your motherhood, being told what to do, having no autonomy and being disconnected from the power of a birthing woman and a birthing person we lose so much more than just that experience. Some, sometimes people want to put it like, like a little childish obsession, like it's, it's unimportant, how you want to birth. Um, and that's why people love making fun of water birth, love making fun of home birth, as if it is just like something frivolous that you would want that you would care about your experience of giving birth above the, the most important thing, which is having a baby that will be breathing and hopefully the mom stays alive too, because we need someone to take care of the baby, you know? Yeah. But it's, it's a very powerful thing to be initiated to motherhood like that. And it definitely shapes like a lot of the way that people just keep on experiencing motherhood throughout the years in this attitude of like,"I matter the least, I am last. The most important thing is my children and my husband."
Bianca:Yeah, but in the, unfortunately the order of children and husband, which then pushes all the buttons of not being, of being deprioritized for males in their, in their brains, mm-hmm , even if you try not to fellas, it happens, you can't help it. It's built in. It's very primal. The identity of mother is a very complicated one because we have this purity upheld Christian built in regardless of where, what your beliefs are and where you come from. Um, and. Yet this like give until you're a husk of a human and love this, because this is your purpose. Like the complete dehumanization of it, which is topics we will be exploring throughout this podcast. Cause it's the entire Bebo Mia steam obsession of, of how did we just become enslaved to the system and we have answers for you, which is really exciting where there's not even gonna be rhetorical anymore. we have evidence based. We're gonna be looking at it from the social, the political, the literature, the art, um, and science of reproductive health. Because man, it's a mess. It's a mess. Yeah. Thank you Marissa for joining us.
Marissa:Yeah. No, thank you for having me, you know that I, I love talking about this stuff.
Bianca:Um, so as we mentioned, Marissa, you have an amazing podcast, La Revolución del Parto and I would love for folks who speak Spanish, to be able to listen to that as well as engage with all the many ways that you do your work in both Spanish and English. So how can folks hang out with you?
Marissa:Um, people can find me in Instagram or Facebook as, um, La Revolución del Parto and if you want to listen to a podcast, you can just go to Spotify, apple podcast, any of them, you also will just be able to find it as La Revolución del Parto. And I also have my English website, which is, um, wombrevolution.com and yeah, people can find me over there. Send me an email, send me a message and connect.
Bianca:I would highly recommend for both folks going through the reproductive journey or other birth workers and activists who wanna put a really awesome addition to your, your gang. I would say, reach out to Marissa. She's very good to have in your gang. Thank you so much, Marissa.
Marissa:Thank you.
Bianca:Having a community as you go through these big feelings of rage, even if you haven't yet identified them, hopefully you have, because, you know, we started exploring how to identify rage in the episode with Amy C. Willis of Hol + Well, and so I think it's really important that you don't do this alone. And that is the actual solution to burnout. It's the actual solution to taking rage from the suffering into a place of service. And so we wanna be that community for you because we can, you know, as Marissa shared with some of them, um, and we'll continue on throughout the podcast, you can do amazing things with that rage and it can take it out of our body and out of that suffering and not have it turn into sickness and mental health crises and for a lot of folks, the loss of life. So there's a lot of ways that you can hang out with Bebo Mia here, both paid and free. You can be part of our brave and incredible movement with continuing education. We do our monthly book club. We have game days, classes, programs, and so much more. You can check us out on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, twitter all with the handle at Bebo Mia Inc. If this has lit a fire and now you feel it's time to move, you are not alone. We have created a free webinar as a space to inspire and join together within the Bebo Mia community. Text webinar to 5 50. 3 5 8 4 3 1 2. Or go to www.hotandbrave.com to grab your space in the free webinar. Once again, text webinar to 5 5 9 3 5 8 4 3 1 2. Or go to www.hotandbrave.com to grab your. We will see you next time on the hot and brave podcast.