Birth Story Medicine Sessions
for birth Attendants

There is a folktale about an old woman who lives in the high desert. She is wise, one who knows and gathers, and is known as La Loba because she gathers wolf bones on her walks in the wild. It’s a long, patient process to gather a scattered skeleton; to make it whole again, she must search and find every tooth, tail, rib, and toe bone and arrange it on her table. Then, circling her hands over the skeleton, she closes her eyes and sings a prayer song. Breathing life into what seemed dead, the wolf fleshes out; soon, its ears and whiskers twitch wags its tail, and opens its eyes. 

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A story recorded in a medical chart is objective, just the facts, and you can never change it. But this is not true for other stories. There is Medicine in folk tales, myths, and our personal stories, all of which are ambiguous in their meaning, meaning that each time we tell or hear a story, we listen to it in a new way, revealing new meaning. The story of La Loba can mean different things to each listener or even to the same listener at other times. This tale suggests the process of soul retrieval. When a person experiences emotional shock or trauma, they describe numbing, disconnection, or getting stuck; some healers refer to this response as the soul leaving the body to protect the human from too much pain. In this case, birth story work requires empathy, compassion, deep listening, and a refuge for the listener while they search and find the missing pieces of their story.

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Birth-related professionals are trained to safeguard mothers and babies in childbirth. As a witness to the joys and miracles of modern health care as well as complications and unexpected outcomes. But it’s impossible to be fully prepared or trained to handle this profession's demands and heavy psychological weight.

* Credit: La Loba folktale by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run with the Wolves