Abstract
Plants Used for Reproductive Health by Nahua Women in Northern Veracruz, Mexico. This paper reports the use of medicinal plants by Nahua women in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. It documents the women’s plant knowledge for reproductive purposes, which includes uses such as conception, pregnancy, birth, contraception, menstruation, post-partum, and general reproductive health. The concept of equilibrium is very important in regaining health among the Nahua; consequently, many of the medicinal plants have this as their primary purpose. The introduction of biomedical clinics and hospitals in the region has had a significant effect on the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. Additionally, the midwives are not taking any new apprentices and laywomen are not passing on their knowledge to future generations. This generational gap contributes to the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. This research contributes to the study of indigenous ethnobotany by (a) creating a record of the plant knowledge possessed by indigenous women, (b) giving voice to some of their health concerns, (c) indicating how the introduction of biomedicine has affected their plant use, and (d) providing a framework for understanding how marginal peoples around the world respond to the impact that globalization and change has on their health needs and local ethnobotanical knowledge.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the women and midwives in Amatlán for their knowledge and patience, with special thanks to Esperanza and Camila for help in plant collecting. This research would not have been possible without the financial support from the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc., (Grant # 05063), and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame. I would also like to thank the staff at MEXU for their invaluable help in plant identification, in particular Dr. Gerardo Salazar C. and M. en C. Angélica Ramírez Roa. Thanks also go to Crystal Truong, Christopher Smith, and Alejandro Gonsenheim for their help with the images. I would like to give special thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and careful reading of this article.
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Smith-Oka, V. Plants Used for Reproductive Health by Nahua Women in Northern Veracruz, Mexico. Econ Bot 62, 604–614 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-008-9026-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-008-9026-7