Responsibilities
Midwives are responsible for the pregnant women during their pregnancies without any formal training or learning except for what they believe they receive from their dreams. These dreams are believed to contain visions from the spirits on how to properly examine women, massage a woman, feel for the position of the fetus, measure dilation, cut the umbilical cord, how to pray and how to foretell a child's future by the markings on its umbilical cord. Midwives believe that in these visions they also learn to identify problems that can pose a threat for a healthy delivery and transport those women to nearby clinics and hospitals. Midwives are summoned around the third to fifth month of pregnancy and visit at monthly intervals for prenatal care, until the final month of pregnancy when they begin visiting on a weekly basis. The prenatal care provided by midwives includes periodic massages, examinations, attending the delivery and tending to both new mother and child following the birth in the week of bed rest.
Read more about this topic: Midwifery In Maya Society