Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico: Childbirth and Contraception from 1750 to 1905 by Nora E. Jaffary (review)

This study primarily covers the efforts of Nahua women “tepalehuiano” (midwives) to maintain dominance in the areas of conception, contraception, birth, and neonatal care until the start of the twentieth century in Mexico. Jaffary chronicles the relentless incursion of Hispanicized, licensed male physicians who introduced birth by caesarean section, forceps, chloroform anesthesia, and a maternity hospital in the birthing of children. She uses as primary sources criminal and Inquisition cases that identify practices and viewpoints about conception and abortion from indigenous times to the start of the nineteenth century. Jaffary also consults ethnohistorical accounts, medical-history studies, and governmental legal codes to round out her findings.

The best chapter in the study discusses indigenous midwives’ methods and their expertise in herbal remedies. Unfortunately, most of the practices of the indigenous tepalehuiano were not recorded in many documents, though two midwives testified in court proceedings to ascertain whether young women under the age of fifteen had been raped. Jaffary uses specific instances of abortion and infanticide recorded in the Mexican Archives from 1823 to the 1880s/1890s to make her points. She also investigates the ethnicity of the midwives either as indigenous, Spanish, or of Mulata or Mestiza ancestry.

The fifty-three midwives that Jaffary identified were single, married, or widowed between 1566 and 1888. Accusations made about midwives in the realm of abortions and infanticide often resulted in charges being dismissed because of insufficient evidence by Inquisition and municipal courts during the Spanish Empire and the start of the Mexican nation-state. Jaffary also investigates the decline of Nahua/mixed ancestry midwives not only because of the incursion by male physicians but also because of the onset of Catholic, Eurocentric notions about rape, female virginity, racial purity, honor, and nation-building via the regulation of women’s behavior.

While the Mejicas (Aztecs) thought that alcohol was the root of crime, Mexican ideologues during the Porfirato believed that crime was the result of abnormal sexual behavior related to women’s promiscuity and illegal abortion. Jaffary’s discovery of court proceedings involving accusations of rape, abortions, and infanticide primarily from Mexico City and Oaxaca help to re-affirm her views that Mexico gradually became more patriarchal with grave consequences for the majority of Mexican women. Documents tended to concentrate on irregular births as opposed to normal ones, which generally went unrecorded.

Surprisingly, Jaffary does not include a discussion about Isla de las Mujeres, an island off Quintana Roo, and Tepeyac, Mexico City, two important sanctuaries where for centuries Maya and Nahua women congregated with indigenous healers and midwives to discuss fertility and childbirth issues. Tepeyac was where Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, wearing the black sash indicating that she was pregnant. Aside from these omissions, Jaffary presents significant archival material that shows the immense importance of the Nahua midwives, as well as historical records that reveal the struggle that all Mexican women faced to control their bodies.