Arquivo

In Amapá, one of the Brazilian states with the lowest rates of demographic density in the country – 2 inhabitants for each 144 square kilometers – another amazing figure is recorded: a recent survey showed that 918 midwives work in the region, which has the highest occurrence of normal deliveries in Brazil (88%). The average rate of Caesareans there is 12%, bellow the mark of 15% indicated as acceptable by the World Health Organization (OMS). In this vast territory that has only 16 municipalities, there is a shortage of hospitals, and great distances make it difficult to reach the various communities spread throughout the Amazon jungle, marshes, and “cerrados” (typical savannah-like vegetation). Within the context, these midwives fulfill an important social function. The film focuses the lives of these women, who are housewives, fisherwomen, agriculturists, and Brazil nut foragers, and they leave their homes to help women in labor, and stay with them for another seven days following delivery. They rarely receive money as payment. In exchange for their services, they receive a little maize, a hen or even nothing, since many of them believe they have been chosen by God for the mission of “pulling a belly” and of “grabbing the kid”. In depicting the midwives’ day-to-day life, themes are focused such as miscegenation, religious belief, ecology, delivery techniques, and, above all, the wisdom of these women, who are mostly illiterate, and who acquired a very special knowledge of life and death, after helping in the birth of hundreds of children, among whom are their own grandchildren.