Tekontaterièn:tare launches

Dozens were welcomed at the Tekontaterièn:tare Multigenerational Center for Women’s Wellness last Saturday for its launch and open house at the Kanesatake Health Center (KHC)’s Tsonkwatentionhátie Farm.

“This is huge because to bring it back into our own communities and our own land is huge, in claiming back our sovereignty and our right to birth our own babies in our own communities,” said Shirelle Jacobs of Akwesasne, who was on a midwives panel at the event.

Before visiting the recently renovated building, attendees listened to a presentation by Haudenosaunee author and traditional healer Wendy Hill, followed by the panel, which also included a midwife from the Blainville Birthing Center.

Jacobs, who is in her third year at the Cedar Medicine School of Midwifery in Seattle, was on the panel as a student midwife.

Jacobs first became a doula in 2017, and after assisting in births and becoming a part of different community groups, she said she “fell in love with it because it’s so healing and it’s an honour to be a part of somebody’s birth.”

“Because of colonialism we had that all taken away,” said Jacobs. “We weren’t able to speak our language, we weren’t able to have ceremonies or medicine or people even in the room with you in a hospital birth, all that is stripped from you.

“So I think when I became a doula, I loved it because I was able to help, and I have seen that we can rebuild the old ways. We can bring back having our babies on our land, in the language, in the songs, and build our births the way we want them.”

The panelists explored the topics of hospital and home births, the importance of longevity in physical and mental health, and considerations around prenatal care, labour, delivery, and post-partum.

“We’re trying to revitalize our traditions and our cultures and bringing back the language into birth and treating birth like a ceremony where we have our own songs, our own medicines, our own food,” said Jacobs.

“We get to invite who we want into the room, whether it’s the father, the mother, the aunts, the friends, the sister. And it makes a huge difference also, because being a part of the birth is a lot of generational healing from trauma too.”

Once the panel concluded, everyone was led inside the two-story house to discover the brand new space.

“The goal for the open house today was first off to officially launch the space,” said KHC birthkeeper Patricia Gabriel, “but to also give the community the opportunity to come in and take a look around, and see it, and be a part of it. It’s really a living thing.”

On the ground floor, after the foyer, there is a living room, a bedroom, a tub, and a bathroom. Upstairs, there is a common area, a kitchen, a bathroom, as well as a pull-down bed that can be set up when needed. The house is filled with books, art, and plants.

“We wanted it to feel like home, to be cozy, homey, to be as if you were walking into your tóta’s house, to have that warmth there,” said Gabriel.

“For me, it is like a vision or dream come true,” said Karen MacInnes, a newly retired maternal child health nurse of 19 years at the KHC, of bringing a facility to the community.

“A safe and sacred space for women to have their babies, that’s just beautiful.”

The house is equipped with various tools to aid and support women in their delivery. Gabriel said women can give birth in the tub, but it’s also used for pain management. There is a birthing stool that allows for different positions and can be used to manage contractions.

“And then there’s outside too, you can just go and labour outside, that’s the beauty of this place,” said Gabriel.

The centre offers prenatal classes, moon time teachings, breastfeeding gatherings, and more. Gabriel said the team is looking for feedback from the community, and programs will be developed as needed.

“It’s developing as we go, and as we meet people and sit with them, hear them out for what they want,” she said.

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