Decolonizing Birth ~ Indigenous Midwifery

I have started an Indigogo campaign to raise money for updating my birth kit! Please donate and support indigenous midwifery http://www.gofundme.com/indigenousmidwife

My name is Sacheen Seitcham. I am a 37 year old indigenous mama from the West Coast of Vancouver Island, I specialize in Nuu Chah Nulth birthing practices because this is what i know, what i am passionate about. I am highly intuitive and skilled in connecting with the guiding spirit. This is the fire that lives within me the fire that drives me to learn, to grow, to care about pregnancy. To help women during, labor, birth and after care.

I have been called to midwifery from a very early age, after having been dissatisfied as a very young mother after my first birth no matter how triumphant! I knew i had to learn a different way. I cobbled together best I could meaningful rites of passage for myself and my two babies that followed. Flowing with my instinct and the indigenous knowledge i gathered from various elders, healers, and yes Dr.’s and nurses. I started helping other mothers, friends and family, I quickly became the “one” that everyone went to if they had questions or concerns. I was very honored to be taught by our family Dr. the more medical aspects of birth and with her guidance I delivered my sister two babies.

I have gone on to birth three more children of my own, traditional and ceremonial home births for two and with my last a hospital birth. All three births were sacred and completely as i had planned and envisioned. This is the right of every woman, to birth without boundaries or fear. I now am mother to nine children and one grandchild.

I spent 1 month in Haiti in June / July 2011, at the mother health international birth center gaining hands on training needed and offering my services to the women who were affected by the tsunami. This was invaluable to my experience and changed me profoundly.

When we think of pregnancy and childbirth we all almost invariably think of going to the hospital and for some this option seems wrong and does not fit with who they are, for others maybe they have not realized yet that there is a safe alternative. Birth is natural, normal, and healthy and in most cases does not require hospitalization or intervention. With guidance and love the mother and her birth companions are all cared for and happily experience one of the universes most treasured miracles. Sacred Natural Birth.

I self identify as a midwife, i believe it is the path that was chosen for me by Creator and I educated myself accordingly and practiced for a long time without saying i was midwife before i felt i had gathered enough skills and knowledge to start to own it and take on that responsibility in a clean and dignified manner. When i was ready i was cleansed and blessed by our ancestors with oosmich and prayers and work. After that i felt i had the permission of my ancestors and was blessed.  I am still educating myself and i wont stop learning til the day i die, this is a life long calling for me

Traditional ways are becoming lost to us and some people with the knowledge hoard it to the themselves the other half are giving it away to anyone who asks for it even if they aren’t actually called to being a healer because they don’t want the knowledge gone. I deal in herbs as well but i don’t consider myself a medicine person or a spiritual healer i am a humble and grateful woman who wants to learn, share, and spread knowledge of pregnancy and childbirth and by dint of action am called a midwife.

Xhopakelxhit ~ Ancestral Pride

Our aim is to ensure the continuity of the land, by educating ourselves, and others as much as we can about the need to connect with our home lands