Rosalynn A. Vega is an assistant professor of medical anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her book No Alternative: Childbirth, Citizenship, and Indigenous Culture in Mexico will be released by the University of Texas Press in the fall of 2018. Her scholarship has been recognized by the Ford Foundation, the Society for Medical Anthropology, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Science Foundation, among other organizations. Her research has been funded by a University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States research grant, a Tinker Foundation grant, the Roselyn Lindheim award, the University of California Global Health Institute, a Human Rights Center fellowship, a Jacob K. Javits fellowship, and a National Science Foundation ADVANCE award.
While Mexico’s middle and upper classes are discovering the wonders of natural birth, traditional Indigenous midwives are actively being discouraged from providing the same services to the lower classes.