Much was expected of First Nations women. During pregnancy, they continued their normal hardworking lives: constantly on the move, and responsible for taking down, moving, setting up, and running their families’ camps. In childbirth, they relied on the practical experience of older women and the stories and traditions that related to birth and newborn children.

Older women often acted as midwives. These two women are from the Peel River area.

Angela Sidney

“People are fighting for two lives:
fighting for the mother, and fighting for the baby.”

Storyteller and teacher Angela Sidney describes the experiences of First Nations women in the early days.

"There were no hospitals in those days. People lived in one house like this – that’s why they used to make a little camp back of the main house, back of the main camp. The woman is there by herself: when she starts to get sick, when they know she’s in labour – they take her there. Well, of course, women watch her … People are fighting for two lives: fighting for the mother, and fighting for the baby.”

"After the birth, you break off the soft tops of young trees and you get Hudson’s Bay tea, and you mix it and boil it. That’s what they use right away: she drinks it. It cleans out her stomach, and it goes to her breasts, I guess. It’s good for the baby too."

"If it’s a boy, they take that afterbirth, and they take it out to the bush. They put it up in the tree and let the camp robber [Canada jay] eat it: they say that will give him luck so he’ll become a good hunter. Girl’s afterbirth, they put in a gopher’s nest, bury it in a gopher den and then they become good gopher hunters."

(from Reading Voices, pp. 128-129)