Reproductive Justice: Birthing The Next 7 Generations

From every mother counts, a national call for birth justice and accountability, they say, "Racism, not race, is killing black, brown, and indigenous people and our maternity care system." In what is now known as the United States, women are more likely to die from complications of pregnancy and birth than in 54 other high-resource countries and most of these deaths are preventable. So for the first time ever, a woman is twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as her mother was a generation ago. This burden is not equally shared. In the United States, it is urban native women with the highest maternal mortality rate. In Washington State, where the three of us live, native women are dying at eight times the rate of white mamas, right? Four times rate of black and Pacific Islander mamas. So we have by far the highest maternal mortality rate in Washington State and for most, they just want to survive. You know, actually just wanting to live through the experience is the goal, right? I remember when we were on the way to the hospital to get birth to Alma, I was talking to him about if I die. If I die today, I want you to stay in Swinamish. I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay here so my baby can be raised as an Indian and he was like, "What?" Totally. I, because of the statistics, I genuinely believed that I might, that that might be the day that I died. I can really relate to that feeling of like, "All right, yeah, okay, the nurse was a bitch." And they did, "I forgot my stitches." And they wouldn't give me drugs when I wanted them. And there was a lot of things that went wrong, but at least I lived. So I can actually be the baby lived. Yeah. And so, because I have so many, I know so many women who didn't live through birth and, or their children didn't. And that's a normal experience in our lives. And it shouldn't be, but it is. And so there's inequity in birth for native women and for women of color. And so you're doing the work to change that. Trying to, yeah. Talking with us today is Camille Goldhammer, who is Cicitin Muapatinoyate. She is a national leader on topics of racial equity, birth, and breastfeeding, reclamation, and first-food justice for indigenous families. Her work in reclaiming the traditional practice of breastfeeding while actively working to decrease maternal and infant mortality in native and Pacific Islander communities is profound. Camille has spent 20 years serving urban native families like mine. She was our first born's doula. And she is the founder and current executive director of Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services. Camille, we're so glad you're with us today. I'm Petty Westay, our good morning relatives. I'm just really grateful to be here. Yeah, Camille, social worker, lactation consultant, doula. I'm Cicitin Muapatinoyate, so Dakota woman, you see her pronouns. And yeah, I just, I love native mamas and their babies and caring for them in any way possible. I always say like my career is a mixture of a love letter to like my parents, to my children, and to like the community at large, right? Of kind of really recognizing what are some things that I wish that are resources that I wish like my grandparents had access to. My parents had access to that I had access to as a parent. And so, when I think about the work that I do now, a lot of it is just a result of serving thousands of native moms over the years. I think I've worked with over 3,000 native moms as either a therapist or a clinical social worker, doula, lactation consultant, you know, various different things. For me, it was really just a deep love for our families. I really see native moms and children as the foundation of our community. And that's why I've chosen to put all of my effort into that subset of our population. Earth and justice is never just about access to equitable healthcare, but about all these interconnected and intersecting systems of inequities, such as housing and incarceration and food apartheid and child protective services and unprovoked violence and environmental and justice. And all of these systems are connected. So when we talk about birth justice, we are also talking about systemic oppression. Right, these are so intertwined with everything that we are as indigenous and native people. We can't talk about birth justice without talking about all the intentional systems of oppression that we've experienced, capitalist extraction, man camps, and the direct impact on missing and murdered indigenous women. Violence against native women and native children at boarding schools, intentional separation from culture, languages, stories, teachings, and systems of care. Those are instances they all lead to birth injustice. So how do we in our community's define birth justice? At Spokane Tribal Network, they say we believe that indigenous birth justice is present when indigenous people honor their ancestors by making the best decisions they can during pregnancy, childbirth, and after the baby arrives to ensure the next generation continues. And for me personally, indigenous birth justice is returning to our bodies to my body, to my inherent knowing that we know what's best for ourselves and for our babies. It means being empowered by our life ways or remembering them, restoring them, and also our support systems without our support systems is really hard to find that justice that we deserve. So that our babies are safe and healthy and that we are empowered to make the decisions for ourselves and for our families. You know the definition that I use and we use that hummingbird for birth justice is really reproductive justice. It is that we have a right to have babies when we want to, we have a right to not have babies when we don't want to, and we have a right to raise those babies in safe, healthy, and culturally attuned environments. My friend Red Rock taught me a few years ago one of his treatings which was and is that the traditional role of a parent was always just to love the child. The rest of the community was really responsible for all the other things. You know kiddo gets in trouble or does something wrong, go talk to uncle. You need to learn how to do something, go talk to grandma, right? There'd be all these different roles that the community plays. But as a parent, all we had to do was love our children. And that's something that I really think of when I think of reproductive justice is a world in which our only responsibility would be to love our children. It's like dreaming of a life pre-colonization. I know. I just get to be all loving. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Right. That reproductive justice is creating systems of care for families and for moms with new babies that allow them to have the space to bond with their baby. Absolutely. Yep. And that's what I believe will heal historical trauma, right? It is love and attachment that will do that, right? It quite literally changes our genes and those disruptions that happened in the way that our attachments and bonds throughout history have been impacted, whether that's by direct colonial systems by US government policies, Canadian policies, right? I mean, so many of the things that we experience as native people were meant to disrupt the mother-child relationship, even before boarding schools, right? We think about the way that displacement, war, famine, murder, right? Like all of those things. This mantle of the security system that a mom would have. And I say this all the time in our breastfeeding training, like our role as Indigenous lactation counselors is just to build confidence, right? That's all we're doing is building confidence. And the number one ingredient to confidence is security, right? And that's just something that so many of us don't have. It disrupts generation after generation. And so what we're really wanting to do when we think about reproductive justice and really reclaiming reproductive justice is reclaiming that ability to say, "I'm your mama and I'm going to be here forever." And being able to say that with assurability. And when we have that security, then we can more freely love and attach with our children, which will heal those past generations. So let's get into our conversation with Kami. She's going to tell us a bit about how she came into this work and I think we should just jump right in. Sorry. All my relations. I got pregnant when I was 28 years old. so you know like a little, little older. And like my family were having a baby, but very intentional about it, which was definitely a privilege. I was really focused as a lot of moms are actually on the birth, right? I didn't think at all about how I would feed my baby. I still think about how funny that is. Like I didn't, I didn't really plan a breastfeed, but I also didn't plan to bottle feed. And I was, I was really kind of like just focused on how's the baby gonna get out and you know that piece of it. I didn't think much about how I would feed my baby at all. I didn't have a strong opinion on breastfeeding, bottle feeding. I never seen anyone breastfeed in my life. It wasn't something anyone in my family did. Because they were, they were bottle feeding? Yeah, yeah, everyone was. I'm the oldest grandchild, you know like on both sides of my family, so I was the first to be born and it was, or actually that's not true second. My cousin was born three weeks before me. So her and I are, we would think we're twins, but you know like we were the first grandbabies. And so yeah, all the babies that came after us, I don't ever remember anyone breastfeeding or anything like that. So it wasn't something that I saw. It wasn't like the norm in my life. And then I certainly had no kind of like opinions or didn't know anything about it. So I went into my, I went into my birth. I was 42 weeks pregnant, which in the kind of mainstream medical model is too late to be pregnant. So it's kind of like the longest someone can be pregnant. And I had a conversation with my midwives about, you know, what the next steps were and that was to induce labor because I was so overdue at that point. So I went to the hospital for an induction and I ended up with a C section after 24 hours of labor. And now that I know a lot about birth, I can really tell, know that my baby and I just weren't ready. We just weren't ready. Like maybe we just wasn't in a good position. It was not time for her to be born. But we were, you know, like we were being advised when medical professionals. And that was just, and that was what we had chosen. You know, it was like this was the system we were part of. And although I, you know, could advocate for myself to a certain extent, it never crossed my mind to question any of those things. But one of the things that happened during my labor when my nurse was kind of hooking me up, you know, putting the IV in, things like that. And she was an elder British woman. And she said to me when I was, you know, when she was hooking everything up is she said, you're gonna breastfeed your baby, right? And the way she said it to me was just kind of this like assumption that like, of course I would breastfeed my baby, right? Like why wouldn't I? And I was like, yeah, I'll give it a try. And that was, you know, that was that. And it quite literally changed my life in so many ways. And I'm so grateful that I decided to do that. And then throughout my induction, she just talked to me about breastfeeding. You know, she talked to me about skin to skin. She's like, after your baby's born, we're gonna put your baby skin to skin and that helps them, you know, regulate their temperature and their better breastfeeders. Like all this stuff. And I was like, okay, yeah, that sounds great. Let's see that. We eventually ended up with a caesarian. And I was so sad. So sad about a caesarian. I mean, to this day, I don't think I've cried so hard as I did in that OR, kind of leading up to it. I was so devastated. I guess by the whole process, part of that goes into kind of like our teachings is Dakota people and how we get our babies here. 'Cause like for us, is Dakota people like that transition period is where we as the mom as the birthing person, we step, step to that other side. So we're quite literally straddling like the present and the spirit world, right? And that's why it's scary. That's why it's this scary time period where we're like, I don't wanna go there, right? 'Cause you're going into that spirit world. And so I was really confused thinking about a caesarian of like, well, how will I know I have my baby if I don't do this, right? And that's why I was scared of it. 'Cause I was just like, but how will I know I have my babies like the right baby? And like, how will my baby have, you know, 'cause like for me, like this was her body. That transition was, you know, that like piece of going to get her was important. And so I didn't understand with a caesarian, like how I would do that. Because transition is an important part of labor for bringing our babies to our side. And transition is that time period between active labor and pushing. So it's the time period where normally you're like, I want the drugs. I don't wanna do this anymore. - I'm not, right? Like, I'm out. This is too much. This is too much. - I got there. - I got there like, I changed my mind. - Yeah, right. - I'm gonna be the drugs. - Yeah, I'm gonna be the drugs. - Yeah. - Pretty textbook, you know, Cesarian, nothing major happened. And I was so happy, like I was so happy to have her. And the nurse said, she's like, you have the perfect breast for breastfeeding. And I was like, I do. You know, like, and which was so cool. 'Cause for me, I had very small breasts, prior to breastfeeding. You know, and so I hadn't really thought of them as being perfect for much of anything. And when she said that, I felt like so empowered and was like, well, let's do this then. I mean, if they're perfect, let's try now. (laughing) And, yeah, so my baby, Dylan went to nurse and at that moment, everything got very different for me. When Dylan latched onto me, it was dark. Like, we were, you know, we were still in the OR, I'm still being stitched up, like everything. You know, there's all these people around us. But when she latched on it, it was just her and I. I mean, I couldn't see or hear or smell like anything going on around me. I could just see like her face. And we were, you know, we were nursing and we're looking at each other. And then I had this like feeling that we were being watched, if that makes sense. And that someone was with us. And at that moment, I looked, I kind of like, looked up away from her face. And I saw who I believe were my ancestors. But they were, 'cause they looked like me, right? And so they were like women that looked like me throughout like generations. And what I saw in their face were big smiles, right? Like I was just like, and I knew at that moment that I was on that other side that this is the moment that I had crossed over to retrieve my baby. And what I really saw on their faces and felt from them is just pride, enjoy, and happiness over me really committing to parenting my baby, that we were gonna be changing something for our family and really reclaiming new traditions. And that that was healing them. And I think that that's something that's really important that we talk a lot about like the next seven generations, right? And what we do impacts the generations that come after us. But we don't necessarily look at time as cyclical and that what we are doing is also impacting the generations that come before us. And so something as simple as breastfeeding and really reclaiming that, you know, that practice for my family was healing for those that came before us. And that also, you know, that that was your retrieval. - Yes. - Going to the spirit world. - Yes. - That was the moment that you crossed over. - And I got my baby. - Yep. - Yep. - I also want to acknowledge that some people aren't able to breastfeed, you know, and that happens too. - Absolutely. - And I don't want people to feel ashamed around that, you know? - Yeah. - We all have different bodies and different things happen with our bodies. And so, you know, sometimes it's not possible and that's okay too. But I understand that you breastfed for quite a long time. I breastfed until Alma was almost three. - Yeah. - And I got a lot of flack for it. - Yeah. - You know, like, and my brother would say to me, like, put your titties away. - Yep. - That would be like, (laughing) - That's not like that. - Right. - That's what this is. - Right. (laughing) - And a lot of people, you know, they gave me a really hard time. They were like, she's too old to be breastfeeding. You know, like, she, you know, at that age, she could stand and ask for it, you know? And we should be doing like, cartwheels on top of me, breastfeeding. - Oh, I understand. - Because they died. - Yeah. - You know, it was, but when we stopped breastfeeding, we had a, we had a booed party. - I remember we made a cake with a nipple. - Yep. - And we cut the cake. It was like, okay, we're ending breastfeeding. We had a party. - Yeah. - It was a celebration. And everybody gave her words that was there, told her about when they stopped breastfeeding. And I remember my nephew, who delivered it, he goes, okay, you know, Alma, I used to breastfeed and I'm okay. I survived, you know, you're gonna be okay. (laughing) (laughing) - You know, and Alma would go, "I'm not too worried." It's gonna be okay, bro. - You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay, you know? And Alma was like, yeah, I'm not breastfeeding anymore. And then we got in bed that night. And she was, "Mom, I'm so telling you, buddy, but let's just have a little milk." - I could know. - You know, and so on. And she was crying. I was like, okay, baby. I felt so bad. I was really done, but I felt really bad for her 'cause she was really mourning. - It is sad. It's a significant shift in a relationship. - Jojo, my youngest, I bribed her. I paid her $100 to stop breastfeeding when she was five. (laughing) - It was so cool. - You were like, "Is it gonna give you $100?" - I will give you $100 and she at first said no, but then deal with it. - I was still in, you know, this big sister stepped in and was like, "JoJo, do you know what you could buy "with $100?" And that's when JoJo was like, "Okay, we'll do it." And she also, you know, like, regarded it the next day. She was like, "I changed my mind," and I was like, "Nope, we're good." 'Cause I was very done. My breastfed for over eight and a half years straight with no break, you know, through a pregnancy, two kids, it was a lot, you know, and to go from, yeah, being someone that was like, "Sure, I'll give it a try," to that was, you know, like, not my plan. But I was over it. Like, it started giving me like feelings that I was like-- - The willies. - Yeah, I should not. I got the willies. - Yeah, I shouldn't feel this way. - The willies. - But, Kami, you really helped me through that period of time because as someone who's a survivor, of sexual assault, when this, you know, larger, almost two-year-old would demand, and like, you know, felt entitled to my body and my breast. While I was pregnant, it started triggering these experiences of not having the authority over my own body. And I called Kami just bawling, crying, like, 'cause I was traumatized. I was retraumatized from breastfeeding. And that's when Kami was like, "Okay, yeah, you're done. It's time for you to stop. If you want to be done, this is a good time to stop." - I do believe that weaning from breastfeeding is a parent-led, mother-led endeavor. I think this is where, like, kind of mainstream, white attachment parenting gets this really wrong. You know, that, like, we have to just, like, let the kiddo do it as much as they want forever. I'm like, "You can't tell me that my ancestors 300 years ago "loved nursing a five-year-old, like, at any time, "that they wanted to. "No, I got a buffalo hide to prepare." Like, I can't do that, right? I mean, it was like, there was other things to do. And I think, you know, like, one of, so I do believe that generally it is gonna be a mother-led thing. It is an important lesson for children to learn about body autonomy and consent and specifically respecting the body of a woman, right? And thinking about, like, how early as mothers, we kind of, like, give up that, right? And, like, how are we teaching, you know, like, what are we teaching to the kiddos? - You'd say, "Mom and mom, mom and mom, "can you do his hands?" This is sign language. And then, I'd say, "Sorry, son. "We sent the balloon away, "and we said, "We have to send the booby-mom-a-milk "back to the moon so the new baby's being born "can have milk again." So we did this whole ceremony. So he knew he was old enough to know. He'd say, "Mom and mom, mom and mom, milk." And I'd say, "Who's body son?" And he'd go, "Mama's." So it was the first lesson on consent, yeah. - And we can still love them through it, right? I'm sorry, you're sad. I can comfort you in other ways. And that's the shift, right? And that's the shift in a relationship. But it lays that foundation that never goes away. And that's what you have to kind of remember with it, right? Is that love and attachment and bond? It is unique. - So this clear path that you were on, message from your ancestors, the healing journey, your mom now, and tell us then what led to the lactation. - Yeah, yeah. - Confrontation. - So I was returning back to work and I really didn't, I didn't know how to pump. I didn't have an office. I worked out of my car and family's homes. And so I was really like, what's this gonna look like for me as a social worker, working in the field and continuing to lactate, and pump for my baby? So someone had suggested I go to a La Lecci league meeting, which is like a peer-to-peer breastfeeding support group that has been around for a long time since the 50s. I walked in and it was a whole bunch of white ladies. And I remember seeing someone who was literally standing up and nursing her like four-year-old, who was like standing up to. - Just the four-year-old was standing up. - Yeah, and she was too, I mean, I was like, what? I was literally like, what in the white lady? - Your, yeah. - I've never seen anything like, you know, you gotta keep in mind, I've never seen breastfeeding before. I've been breastfeeding for like two months now. And they're like, how can we help you? And I said, like, I'm returning to work next week and I don't have pump, I'm hoping you can help me. And literally, the response was like, well, do you have to return to work? She's so young, she's so little. And I was like, wait, what? Like, obviously, I have to return to work. Like, I would not be returning to work if I didn't have to return to work. And so I just went home from that feeling. And they didn't help me. You know, they were like, didn't know how to pump 'cause they're all say at home moms and like all this stuff. So I went home and just started googling, you know, like Native American breastfeeding support, Indian mom breastfeeding, I mean, just like, I tried all these different Google combos and everything I got was like photos from the 1800s of like someone, you know, like a Native mom breastfeeding. There was nothing current than I was so like, this is it. Like, there's nothing for us. And that's when I was like, well, I guess I got to start something. And so that's how I really got on that pathway and part of that was becoming a lactation consultant. Learning more about kind of the field of lactation, it was exclusively white women. And I'm like learning from all these white ladies, you know, as far as like how to become a lactation consultant, all of my training, nearly all of the families that they were serving were exclusively white. And I was really kind of like taking this step back of looking at like, okay, so Native babies are dying at extremely high rates of cids specifically, right? Is like one of the number one causes of death. Native babies are two to three times more likely to die of cids than then white babies. - Sun infant death. Now we call it suid or sun unexplained infant death. And babies that aren't breastfed are about 50 to 70% more likely to die of cids than babies who are breastfed. - Oh. - Breastfeeding is extremely protective against suid. - Why? - So there's a couple of different reasons why. One is just the general overall health and well-being of a baby. Breastfeeding is, does a lot of incredible things where it really shines against respiratory illnesses and things like that. And we're finding that a lot of babies that are dying of cids have kind of like underlying respiratory infections or illnesses. And then that paired with like being a certain age range. I mean, there's kind of like other compounding risk factors, but that's something that they see. And breastfed babies just don't have high rates of respiratory infections. When they do get sick, it's not as severe and they get better a lot faster. The milk is medicine or literally passing antibodies through the milk to the baby. The other piece is breastfed babies wake up a lot. And this is one of those things that I tell parents 'cause it's usually one of the hardest things about having a baby is that their baby is wake up often, right? - And do. - Yes, they do. And what I always remind parents after validating how tired you are and I'm so sorry, I know it's hard, but reminding parents that a baby waking up is a life-saving skill, right? Waking up is a life-saving skill for a baby. And if we think about kind of like going back to our traditional practices too, and I go all over Indian country and find that most of us have very similar teachings around this stuff as we believe that our babies are connected to the star world, our spirit world, or the other, you know, like depending on your culture for a while, some babies, it's, you know, until their soft spot closes, right? Like that's that portal for us to code of people. That's, you know, as long as that soft spot is open, that baby is connected to the other side for a Navajo baby until they laugh for the first time, right? Like those are things that are saying, like this baby is here permanently. And a lot of times our teachings tell us that when we sleep, that's when we get to, that's when we get to travel, right? That's when we get to go to the spirit world. And so for babies, as beings that are still very much connected to that other side, we need them to come back. We need them to wake up, right? And breast milk is so easily digested that they wake up an hour after eating. - You don't have to worry about it. - You wake up four or five minutes after eating. They wake up two hours after eating, right? I mean, it's like, that's all very normal and that's exactly the way it's supposed to be, right? Baby sleeping for a very long time is not the biological norm. So that's one of the other ways that we see breastfeeding is protective is that these babies wake up often, you know, and they're ready to eat 'cause this milk is so perfectly designed for their digestive system. - Can I just say real quick, lactation consultant, so get a bad rap in Hollywood. - Thank you. You know, like this stereotype of lactation consultant is like this woman comes in, she's got an industrial - Grab your baby. - She's got your baby, she's got your boob. She like punches it a bit and gives you some herbs and leaves you or some things. - Yes. - So can you just define what a lactation consultant does? - Absolutely. - And there are. - There are not great lactation consultants. - Before you define what to do, my unknown, I had no experience with lactation consultant until Kenny became our dealer and lactation consultant. And there was the pregnancy part of it, which I'll let you explain. But then when my baby came and he, I was fortunate despite of it, the role and other interventions, a piece of the army and all, you know, 38 hours later. my baby, I would birth out of my vagina. - Yeah. - And Akila came crawling up my belly. - He was crawling. - And I just remember Cammy over my shoulder. And she waited for skin to skin, crying, hi, I said hi. And she went, I just remember her hands gently grabbing and kind of going, okay, he's ready to nurse. (laughing) And I just remember going like, he is? - Well, Cam, who's my best friend, who I teach the Indigenous lactation counselor, training with her and I, or the first time I heard her describe it this way. And I was like, yes, that's it. She really says, she's Navajo, and so she also holds the belief that these babies come from what they call the holy people, right? And she's like, I really see myself, that the baby is this little star person, they're this spiritual being. And I'm just there to guide them. You know, and I think that's a big difference between what we do as Indigenous lactation counselors as Indigenous doulas, but as an Indigenous lactation consultant versus like, wait, you know, like what you're kind of talking about, Matika with kind of like the mainstream white, you know, lactation consultant is, we really follow the baby's lead. It's really important that we let do everything on their terms, and that is going to help to establish a stronger and better attachment later on too. And create a better breast feeder. It helps to establish a better milk supply. And breastfeeding is so hard. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's-- It's so hard. It's well, yes. I remember it being like just, I remember the third day after the baby came out, I produced her Jonathan, his wife, Jade. She said, I sent you something in the mail, and I opened it up, and there was nipple cream, and you know, the stuff for like the cold compacts. Yeah, yeah. And milk bars, just like a breastfeeding care package. And I opened it and I started, I just bald, because I didn't have any of those things. And I was-- that morning was sitting in bed with Alma, this newborn, and I was just bawling trying to breastfeed because it hurt so bad. And I could not understand how I was supposed to keep doing this. Totally. It was-- my nipples were chopped. They were bleeding. I was-- it was like-- it was fucking terrifying. Yeah. So I think, you know, it seems like it should be normalized, but the lactation consultant that I saw at the hospital was like mostly concerned about the latch. Like we went in, and she's like, OK, it's working. You know, and then they sent me home. But I felt like I needed somebody to help me figure that shit out, because it was-- If I had seen you on day three, that would have been unacceptable for me. You know, and it would have been a-- you know, a sign that like something is going on, and we need to fix it, because it's not sustainable. You know, one of the things that is important when thinking about breastfeeding is that-- and this always like really pisses people off, is that breastfeeding shouldn't hurt. So breastfeeding shouldn't hurt. If breastfeeding hurts, something's wrong, right? And this is where like those cultural-- like having the aunties that know about breastfeeding, right? Like those kinds of things make a huge difference. When we look at communities that have maintained that tradition of breastfeeding, so you know, generally indigenous cultures around the world that have been untouched by kind of like modern civilization, right? We're 100% of people breastfeeding. Those mamas have all the same fears that we have here. They-- you know, their nipples hurt. They worry about their milk supply. They get infections. They go through all the exact same experiences. But what they have that we don't have is grandmother's breastfed, because breastfeeding is a cultural practice that is ingrained in everything they do. And for us, we don't have that largely here, right? And so when someone's going through what you're describing, a ton of pain, damage, all of that, right? And then we have lots of other moms, because 80% of moms experience pain with breastfeeding. So this is a difference between something that's common, but not normal. It is our body's way of saying this is wrong, right? And it is always the baby's fault. So it is their latch that does it. The baby is the one, like almost all breastfeeding problems are a baby's fault. Babies. Those babies, they're the worst. [LAUGHTER] They're the worst. And so as lactation consultants or lactation counselors, that's for us to fix. And most breastfeeding problems are pretty. Let's get the baby nipple-to-nose, wider mouth, adjust them a little, a couple inches to the left, or a couple inches to the right. But it is really important that the baby has a good latch. And if they don't, our body knows because it hurts, right? And pain is our body's way. Any other pain we would experience at that level, right? I always think about, like, can you imagine men with open wounds on their nipples and all this stuff and that people saying, like, oh, just give it six weeks. Just keep doing it. Like a man would never accept that as a reasonable recommendation. Like, no, you'd be like, they'd be like, wait, what? But for some reason, when it comes to moms, that's like, OK, in our society. And that, I do not agree with. [MUSIC PLAYING] Colonization disrupted the cultural practice of parenting. For generations, our children were taken away from us, sent aborting schools. And the result for many of us was a disconnect from our ancestral parenting practices. So a huge part of the work of decolonization is recentering our community-based value systems and really rekindling those relationships. It's overcoming the shame of not knowing and instead building systems of interconnectedness. Our communities used to have an abundance of birth workers. Now, we're often on our own when we're trying to navigate these systems of new parenthood and trying to figure out really what it means to be a mother and how to mother our children. It's so true and it's like our mothering has been really, really, really disruptive. And if we think about mothering as a cultural practice, I think one of the biggest myths we can tell people or let people believe is that mothering is natural. It is absolutely not natural. Like we grow up being mothered or not being mothered. We learn this along the way. And then when we become parents or become moms ourselves, yes, there's this connection to the baby, but knowing what to do, how to do it, that is learned. So I describe mothering a lot like language. It's natural, but it's learned. We learn it by being mothered, by not being mothered, by doing it ourselves. And we also see it in like, we just had a little baby gorilla born here in Washington state at the Wollum Park Zoo. And that baby was born and she was shipped off to be raised by humans elsewhere because gorilla's in captivity, they don't know how to mother. They don't see it. They don't get to experience it. And so when their babies are born, they're like, what are you? Right? And so where if they were in their natural habitat, they would be surrounded by other mothering gorillas. It's so social in there nursing each other's babies, and they're connecting. It's part of their culture. But when you remove a gorilla from her community and place her in captivity, where she never sees a baby, never sees anyone mother, she doesn't know what to do. And so that's where I really started to look at the work that I was doing and looking at like, OK, if breastfeeding is a cultural practice, here I am like a native mom who's never seen anyone breastfeed, never, you know, like got to experience this. I'm seeing the infant mortality rates, our low breastfeeding rates, and really recognizing that me as a native woman, I'm quite literally needing to pay white ladies to get this information back. You know, when it was really something that I should have been, I should have been given, right? I should have been raised, and I should have seen it growing up. This is ours. This is an important part of like our cultural reclamation and really lays like this foundation for all, you know, all of the cultural practices that we have gone on to reclaim. I don't want to cry. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a fucking gorilla. [LAUGHTER] In captivity. In captivity. In captivity. In captivity. Do you know what? There's this really cool story though. Like a really cool story. Make him out of-- Arizona, I see when Arizona in the 1980s, and I know this is true because I know one of the moms that did it. They had a gorilla, a mama who was pregnant. And so they were like, how can we get these gorillas to this mama gorilla to breastfeed? And so they got her a doll. They were trying to teach different things around how to bond and attach with the baby and it just didn't work. And then someone, some geniuses who keeper, was like, what if we had breastfeeding moms come in nurse in front of the gorilla? And they hadn't breastfeeding moms come in nurse, they were sitting the window and nurse their babies. And after a few days, the mama grabbed her baby, copied the human moms. And that baby did exactly what a three, four-day old baby would do when placed skin to skin to a lactating breast, right? Is the baby latched on and she went on to nurse her baby. And that was, I mean, it's just like the coolest story to think about how we can reclaim that, right? And that it is by seeing it, by experiencing it, not so much of the work we do now at Hummingbird and just really normalizing. I mean, you guys know your whole crew, you guys all breastfeed, right? Like, everyone, it's just like the norm. And that really changes, it just changes the trajectory of a community. Yeah. On the kinship it creates. You know, like, 'cause Temeris when Stephanie had her baby in her milk hadn't come in, Temeris sent a bunch of milk for punchy. Yeah. And it was an overproducer. Yeah. And it was like, and like, just kind of the love that Stephanie and Ab have for Temeris now. And me for them and you know. Yeah, and me. And like, I feel really bonded to your family forever. Absolutely. Absolutely. It plays like this crucial role in the strengthening of community. That is, you know, something you know, often think about as a disruptor. Like how breastfeeding plays into kinship. Absolutely. But it's definitely a part of relationality. Absolutely. A huge part of the foundation for a kinship structure. Yeah. And there's always been enough milk. There's always been enough milk. There's always been moms that couldn't breastfeed. Always. You know, like for whatever reason. But there was always enough milk, right? But what capitalism did is it made, you know, it made us create that independence, right? That were no longer connected to each other in that way. And so I think of like how important actions like donating milk or nursing and other baby, you know, things like that really does dismantle colonization, right? It's saying like, we don't, we don't need you, right? Moving from scarcity back to abundance. Absolutely. Like this idea of. Yes. There's abundance of milk. There's abundance of love. Yes. Yes. I feel like that's what you get to do every day through hummingbird and indigenous family services. Yeah. Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, with my breastfeeding work, I started learning more about birth, really recognizing that, you know, birth and breastfeeding are very much connected. It is just part of, you know, part of the process. And so that got me more interested in kind of like birth experiences, do-laying, things like that. A lot of people in community at the time saying like, it's time for something for Native moms and babies. You know, we really don't have that in the Seattle area. We have some incredible Native nonprofits, but none of them specifically and solely serve Native moms and babies. And that's, that's what hummingbird does. Our mission is healthy indigenous babies born into healthy indigenous families supported by healthy indigenous communities. And for us, we truly believe the best thing for Native children is to love on their Native Mamas. And that's what we do. It's really special work. And we have a lot of families that like don't know what a doula is. You know, we'll get on calls with families and they're like, they don't even know what a doula is, right? They got to referral. And so the way I often describe a doula is I just say we're fulfilling the traditional role of an anti. That's it. You know, and when in Dakota, like the way we would, the word we would use for midwife for doula is to eat. So it's anti. It's the same word, right? And that's what it is because kind of I think, Timmer, earlier you were talking about kind of like traditionally, we would have had that village, right? We would have had been surrounded by the anti, the grandma, the women we would have never done anything alone. And now, hey, like, we, there's lots of reasons why we might not have that, right? Or it might not what we do have might not be exactly what we need for a variety of reasons. And so what we're really wanting to do as birth keepers at hummingbird is really just provide that like protection around that space. And really, you know, we, we love native moms like so, so deeply. And, and for me, I think as native moms, like we deserve the best, right? We deserve excellence and anything short of that to me is unacceptable. But I think for so many of us, we're not necessarily raised being told that. And I think for so many women when they go into get pregnant, their, their bar is so low for what the experience should be like. And do you think that in your experience in the medical system that the medical system has an agenda and the birthing practices? So when, yeah, I mean, I do think I think that yes, the system absolutely has an agenda. Individual providers might not, right? But when you work within a system, you're kind of like, behold, yeah, behold into that system, right? You might go in thinking, I'm going to be different, right? Like that kind of thing. But eventually the cognitive dissonance gets the best of you. And you kind of have to make a decision of like, do I jump in and join the system? Or do I get out? And as someone who's been to hundreds of births? I mean, I've seen hundreds of births. Have you? Really? Yeah, I've probably been to close, I mean, I've lost count, but probably close to 300, you know, 300 births and I've worked with over 3,000 diets when it comes to breastfeeding, you know, like over the years. So it's a lot of family, like a lot of families. And I've always said, like, I have a great privilege of not being technically a medical provider, right? Like it's really easy for me to stand on my soap box and say all the things that I think doctors do wrong or hospitals do wrong and things like that. And I don't work within that system, right? The privilege I have is someone who works outside of it and there's a reason I work outside of it. But it's important that we have it and when it comes to kind of like supporting native mamas, like in our work at Hummingbird, right? Like, overwhelming majority of the families we serve are being cared for within these systems. What we do as dolas is really kind of provide some of those like protections around it. We've given alternative vision when we've been so conditioned to saying, well, doctors orders, I guess this is what's best. Why don't you give us some examples? Induction. Yeah. As a perfect example, your babies took 42 weeks. I was 38 for my first birth. I turned 41, five days before my second birth. And because I was over the age of 40, the pressure that I felt to induce before reaching 40 weeks or even like, okay, now, and I just held firm, but it was really hard. And we talked, well, I remember we talked about it. We kind of like talked through like, let's get a few more days. Right? Let's just get a few more days and like, what, and I was really like, what do you want? And I wanted to give my baby enough time and because Akila was 40 weeks and four days, I was like, I just want to get to 40 weeks and four days and then I'll revisit this decision. But I need to get there because that's when I guess when my baby came 40 weeks and four days. Yes, without an induction. Without an induction. But it took me having to be able to, having camey and Vanessa and then Shayee, Jamaican midwives that I was so blessed to work with, to be a thought partner in that and not push a medical agenda. From the medical provider perspective, you were being seen as a 41 year old mom and not Timress. Yes. Right? And that we had a healthy mom and a healthy baby. No signs of anything going wrong. And the history of going a few days post-ates, which is totally normal. And even 40 weeks, four days is early for a first time or even. And you knew that history and you knew your body. And that's one of the amazing things of doing for athletes and dancers and stuff. You know your body so incredibly well. And that can be a really, really, really disempowering situation. The way it's framed makes you sound like the asshole if you say no thank you, right? Or your bad mom. You're putting your baby at risk. Right? And it's just one that's not true, right? That is always a possibility. But we can never say that for certain. And let's look at the whole picture. You know, and that is one of the things that I think like, the mainstream medical model doesn't allow for. We have really moved away from looking at birthing people as individuals. And that's the thing that I think we can do as do us. You know, and I say it all the time, no, no, we're special. Like, I get that you are saying this that in the other, right? But this mom's special. And so we're going to do something different. And I believe that. That's really profound. Yeah. What are some ways that moms, pregnant moms, families that have a getting ready to have a baby, some ways that you suggest taking care of themselves or advocating for themselves? I really wish, like, especially native moms knew that they don't have to just do what they're told. But at the same time, I really want to recognize that we are heavily impacted by historical trauma and kind of like fears of losing our kids. Going into a hospital can be a very, very scary place for someone, right? And like, our goal often is to get out of their life and get out of there with my child. And so it can be really scary to kind of go up against this system. I feel really strongly that I don't think that moms should have to be the ones advocating for themselves. Generally, you're in no position to do that. Your brain is mush. You're like needing to travel to like the other side and back, right? Like you're excruciating. You're in the same pain. You're in pain. You're literally happening to your baby. Yeah, like oxytocin is just like flowing. You've got to think about pooping. Yes. I don't think you have good birth. Exactly. You can think about. It's always so scary. It's so scary. It's so scary. I can't talk about it. They don't care. I got to think about poop. I don't know. And think about poop. It's so true. When Leone and I were-- When Leone and I did the birth training, they told them it was much of my women. They told them, when women are giving birth, they have a really hard time like seeing or around themselves. You know, like they can't hear things that are far away. And they can't see things that are far away. So when I-- He really took that to heart because what? Because he would come and just like-- But he was like-- [INAUDIBLE] So he'd be like, are you thirsty? [LAUGHTER] You're like, what are you doing? After I had to be even for months afterwards, he'd come up and be like, oh, I can't hear you. [LAUGHTER] He's like, can you see me? He's face close to him. I thought, do you want to hear it? [LAUGHTER] That's so cute. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. You're so-- I mean, to that point, you're there also for our partners. Yeah. And boy, do they need you sometimes more than we do. Yeah, you know? It is. It's a lot. Yeah, I mean, we definitely try and hold space. I think so many times partners have no idea what's going on. Or from one birth to the next is totally different. Absolutely. I think we have a lot to learn from one another. All the books we read, that's where I go to. I go to a scholarship. Where's a scholarship on this? And I find this deep lack of resource. Like, I don't want to read a thesis. I don't want to go to Barnes and Noble. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] And I find that in itself at this deep injustice, just like the lack of information. For me, what I want people to know when they get pregnant is one is you deserve the world. And you deserve to have an incredible experience. I also really want people to know. And I know I've shared this with Temeris before, is that this baby chose you, which is one of my favorite teachings that we have as Dakota people, is that this baby looks down from the stars and picks you. And I think that that's being so many Native mamas, like people are pregnant. And they're often wondering, I'm not good enough. This baby could be better off somewhere else. I'm not the right age. I don't have a job. I don't have this security-- right, that kind of stuff. And it's like, yeah, yeah. But the baby saw all that. They saw your past. They see you in the present, and they see your future. And they still picked you. And I think that that's what I want. That's what I always want parents to understand, is that yes, there's a lack of resources. Yes, I wish there was more. I wish there was more hummingbirds. I wish there was more Alaska Native birth workers collectives, and mewajas, and many witchony health clinics. I wish there was so many of those all over. And you're enough. More of them. But not enough hummingbird indigenous family services. All over Taylor Island. I want to talk about the cool thing that you're doing, Kami, with giving money to families. Oh, yeah. That's super cool. The safety net. Make it rain. Make it rain. Kami's going to get it rain. Yeah. So at hummingbird, we have our duala program. We have a home visiting program called Pilema Kua Family Connections, where we work with families up to their child's third birthday. And then we also have the Ness, which is a guaranteed basic income program. So we have 150 moms in it. They are all Native American, Alaska Native, Kanakamali, or Pacific Islander. All of in the King County, Pierce County, and Tulaylap is the area-- our geographical area. We're full at 150 mamas, and they get $1,250 no strings attached cash until their child's third birthday. It starts in pregnancy. So it's about $45,000 plus, however far into their pregnancy, they were, that they're getting the money. When I saw the RFP or the request for proposals cross my desk for this funding, I knew we needed it. Because when we look at maternal mortality rates, there's a lot of things that go in contribute to maternal mortality rates. But one of them is a lack of basic needs being met. Remember how I said 80% of maternal deaths are preventable, right? And so one of the recommendations that the maternal mortality review panel made to our state legislature here in Washington State is provide and meet the basic needs of pregnant women. Like that saves lives. Just like providing someone's basic needs literally saves lives. We're the largest guaranteed income pilot in the United States as far as how much money people get and how long they get it. Many of our families are getting care through the Dula program, through home visiting, and the guaranteed income. And that's where we really see where we think the magic happens. And that was very intentional. I'm a hard core birth to 3% as humans, we develop 80% of our brain by the time we're three years old. So a baby is born with about 25% of their brain capacity. It's doubled in the first six months of life. And then it continues to grow until early adulthood. But 80% of that happens in the first three years of life. And the way we grow a brain is through fat, sleep, and love and affection. That's what grows the human brain. And so that's where breastfeeding comes in. That's where connecting with your baby. When a baby has a healthy, strong attachment and bond with their mom and their parents and other people around them, they are stronger individuals. They have a solid foundation. And so the guaranteed income is just adding to that. What we really want to show is if we give people money and give them culturally congruent supports through the first three years of their child's life, that that is where we really see significant impacts on that family and long term for that child. When baby turns three and they discharge from the program, we're going to open up a $5,000 $5,29 or college savings account in that child's name for them as an investment to that second generation. So-- Oh, yeah. I already know. It's so plenty. So easy. He's through the-- Yeah. Well, gee, you know, Pilar Mia, T. Greedseed, Heishka, many thank yous for the work you're doing, for our community, for our moms. Hope you're all. Yes. Hope you're all-- It's so good. It's like-- It's just really profound. It's just-- I'm so impressed. Thank you for the work you do. How can people support you? Oh, how can they support us? I can send you money. Yeah, they can definitely send money. I mean, while our guaranteed income program is fully funded by a philanthropist, our dual program, our home visiting program, our severely underfunded. We-- for the first time, we're having to turn people away. We couldn't take any more November due dates, or October due dates. We're getting there for December. And that's really, really hard. And it's not because we don't have the staff. I could hire people in a heartbeat if there was the money behind them. Can people donate on your website? Yes. They can donate through the website, hummingbird. www.homingbird-ifs as an indigenous family services.org. So yeah. I just-- I-F-S-I-F-S. I-- F-S-F-S. OK, girl. I do. I do. I have us. OK. We're going to be doing holiday adoptions during the winter. So if anyone, maybe doesn't have funds necessary. but is willing to donate toys or adopt a mama, a native mama, so she can get some love during the holidays would be really great. So yeah, yeah, do that instead of going Christmas shopping. Yeah, adopt a mama. Adopt a mama. Adopt a mama. Adopt a mama. Adopt a mama. Adopt a mama. Adopt a mama. We're talking about this because I adopted one of the families and I noticed that the mom didn't put anything for herself and I let the home visitor know. I need to know what this mama wants and the home visitor was like, oh, she really doesn't. She said she doesn't want anything and I was like, this is a great opportunity for you to talk to her about how important it is for her kids to see her experience joy and to get a gift. Right? And know that there's someone out there that loves her and is thinking about her. Those are important things for native children to see their mom's experience and stuff. So she was like, okay, I'll tell her that. And then I got her measurements and she wants a ribbon skirt and that's what she's going to get. (laughs) You're an angel. Yeah, it is important. So that's where you know, yeah, it'd be great. Gosh, we'll love you. Oh, I love you guys. I know this love. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I love everything you talked about. So I'm really grateful. Thank you for coming on on my relationship. We finally did it. We finally did it. We finally did it. Five years in the making. I just about. Here you are. And I'm glad you were here with Temerist and all of the intersectionality. Yeah. Okay, and tell us how do folks find you on the ground? All right, so we are on Instagram at Hummingbird Family Services. So find us there. (laughs) Anything else? All my relations.