Delivering Health: Midwifery and Development in Mexico

2021 Honorable Mention for the Association for Feminist Anthropology’s Rosaldo Book Prize

Maternal health outcomes are a key focus of global health initiatives. In Delivering Health, author Lydia Z. Dixon uncovers the ways such outcomes have been shaped by broader historical, political, and social factors in Mexico, through the perspectives of those who are at the front lines fighting for change: midwives.

Midwives have long been marginalized in Mexico as remnants of the country’s precolonial past, yet Dixon shows how they are now strategically positioning themselves as agents of modernity and development. Midwifery education programs have popped up across Mexico, each with their own critique of the health care system and vision for how midwifery can help. Delivering Health ethnographically examines three such schools with very different educational approaches and professional goals. From San Miguel de Allende to Oaxaca to MichoacAn and points between, Dixon takes us into the classrooms, clinics, and conferences where questions of what it means to provide good reproductive health care are being taught, challenged, and implemented. Through interviews, observational data, and even student artwork, we are shown how underlying inequality manifests in poor care for many Mexican women. The midwives in this book argue that they can improve care while also addressing this inequality. Ultimately, Delivering Health asks us to consider the possibility that marginalized actors like midwives may hold the solution to widespread concerns in health.