Midwifery in Maya society

Midwifery is a women's profession that assists women from pregnancy to newborn care. In some traditional Maya communities, a goddess of midwifery is invoked, and midwives are generally believed to be assigned their profession through signs and visions. In pre-Spanish Yucatan, the aged midwife goddess was called Ixchel.

Childbirth is the final rite of passage amongst the Maya that completes a girl's transition to womanhood.

Many of the women who give birth in rural areas are treated by midwives who do not have any formal training but who are believed in Maya religion to have received training in dreams. The traditional birth attendants are known as comadronas or iyom kʼexelom, and receive prestige for their practice.

Midwives in Maya societies are responsible for the ajtuj ("pregnant woman") and her unborn child throughout the pregnancy as well as the week of bed rest following the birth. Unlike other societies in which individuals choose their occupational fields, the Maya people believe that they receive a sacred calling from God through dreams which allows them to practice their destined occupation. The calling is divine and the midwife can communicate with the supernatural world.^[1]

Though midwives are held at high prestige for their sacred position in society, these women are often also subject to resentments from their husbands and children as they must spend a great deal of time away from them in order to act as midwives. Midwives must abstain from sex, which sometimes creates difficulties with their husbands.