Ángeles Cruz Martínez
La Jornada newspaper
Tuesday, October 7, 2025, p. 18
Traditional midwives denounced that with the entry into force of the Official Mexican Standard (NOM) 020 for Health Establishments and the Recognition of Parteria in Maternal and Neonatal Integral Care, they initiated health inspection visits to their homes, where they exercise their work. They have seized their work instruments and in other cases, health jurisdictions deny them the delivery certificates, an indispensable document for women to obtain the birth certificates of their children.
They described these acts of violation of their rights and an attack against that ancestral practice that, although the authorities say that it must be recognized, in reality “they intend to disappear.”
The NOM published last March in the Official Gazette of the Federation And that he entered into force on September 1, he makes a division between professional and non -professional midwives and indicates that there will be a national registry of Partería, but it is ambiguous. In a part of the text, he says that those who exercise pastery must register in said registry and in another establishes that it is voluntary.
Later, the NOM-020 points out that to have the link with the medical units for the care of complex or high-risk pregnancies, it is essential that the data in the midwife are in the registry, in addition to that they must participate in training courses on clinical guides for the management of women before, during and after pregnancy, the prescription of contraceptives, as well as for the control and monitoring of the newborn and up to five years.
In this regard, midwives of different states denounced that they were not consulted for the elaboration of NOM-020 although they sent their comments during the preliminary draft consultation period. They only did not take us into account, “one said.
They demanded that the authorities a deal of respect, equal and horizontal with the health institutions and that “do not come to tell us how to do what we know how to do”, including the identification of the moment when the pregnant woman must be treated in a hospital.
They mentioned that they have faced situations of this type and instead of fulfilling their work and providing the medical care that is required, health personnel criminalizes the family who decided to go with a midwife.
The NOM speaks of regularization of the work of midwives, but in reality, they affirmed, it is subordination and “even if we are in the National Registry, we are denied the possibility of using medicinal plants” and, in general, the teachings that have been transmitted by generations.
