Mamantin (Mother-Child) Program

The Mamantin Program (Mother-Child program) aims to provide basic safe tools to pregnant and new mothers to care for themselves and their newborns, together with reclaiming the Celebration of Motherhood especially in rural territories where public health campaigns and strategies have focused to explain motherhood as a stage of risk and birth as a matters of just "surviving". We believe birth is much more than that, where maternal deaths can be prevented with loving and adequate continuous care thru the woman-mother life cycle. The training of new professional midwives which not adhere to the biomedical model of care is key on making possible this vision.

We are still way behind in accomplishing this given the politics in Peru around birth and independent midwifery which can sustain the midwifery model of care - with an intercultural approach as needed in the Andes where Andean midwifery has been part and is still, at a lesser or greater degree, part of the embodied wisdom Andean women have in Peru. More than 90% of birth assistance in Peru is given by a doctor (60.2%) or an obstetra (a professional biomedical midwife) (28%) both trained in the biomedical model of care, with a high rate of unnecessary interventionism and obstetric violence to the women they serve, deemed as "uneducated" by the medical system. There are no midwifery education training centers which adhere to the more respectful and appropriate midwifery model for low-risk births (the majority) so our dream is that aspiring Peruvian midwives can receive this training abroad and then come back to Peru to assist births in this loving & safe model of care. With enthusiast Peruvian midwives properly trained in the midwifery model of care, the next step of dreaming a local intercultural midwifery training center may be possible.

Thus, Hampi Warmi's strategy for this new program is to: 1) keep providing education on maternal and newborn health, with a woman-centered and intercultural approach; 2) keep providing education around reproductive & cultural rights around birth; 3) promoting and revitalizing Andean midwifery wisdom from within rural communities - with the backing of the validity of the midwifery model of care and its safety; 4) supporting and promoting independent birth centers initiatives in Peru; 5) promoting the gestating of independent Peruvian professional midwives (parteras profesionales) in the country and dreaming the best avenues to receiving this training in independent midwifery schools abroad (South America/ North America); and 6) promoting the Remembering of the Celebration of Motherhood, especially in Andean rural communities, through the revitalization of Ceremony & Ritual for new mothers and the collective co-creation of "new" rituals and other ways of motherly celebration (eg photography community project, birth storytelling sacred circles).

A transversal strategy is to broaden the awareness of the diversity of ways of mothering with love and visibilizing these love-mothering manifestations and honor them (eg mothers with low milk supply who feed their babies through breastfeeding and by supplementing).

Parto Vertical con Adecuación Cultural en el Centro de Salud - Huancavelica Peru - Proyecto: avances & limitaciones

Establecimientos de Salud en Churcampa, Huancavelica (Collaborative Project between Salud Sin Limites NGO & others, in alliance with the Ministry of Health-run local health centers)
"Parto Vertical con Adecuación Vertical"

This Program recently (2015) won a WHO prize for best "maternal good practices" project in America

Although there are some advances regarding cultural respect and obstetric violence - this last so common in public health centers in rural areas in Peru - there are still some important limitations in the delivery of care regarding a safe and woman-baby centered approach to birth. Many basic birth practices still don't adhere to the midwifery model care. For example, in this "Vertical Births with Cultural Adaptation" (still 10% of all institutionalized births in the country) after the birth of the baby, the umbilical cord is immediately cut and after that the baby is unemotionally taken away for checking his weight and height in the same room, without having those crucial first moments of contact with her own mother.

Hampi Warmi Educators Network (Red de Educadoras Hampi Warmi) - You Can Become One!

This year 2016, in January, we started Hampi Warmi Educators Training Program, extending the vision of Hampi Warmi's woman-centered and intercultural education & provision of reproductive health. This program aims to have a community of committed health-care workers, women's health educators, social workers, and women in general interested in sharing with/ educating Peruvian girls and women particularly in rural areas - and with women worldwide. Thus, we started the "Hampi Warmi Educators Network" with our first-graduate, Derlly Baldera, Peruvian obstetra (professional biomedical midwife), from rural Lambayeque (Northern Coast-Andes) who sought our Menstrual Health Educator Training for Teens. After completing the 4 modules, with assigments in between (including own personal work as revising one's own menstrual herstory), she now provides this education to rural girls of Cachinche, Ferreñafe, in Lambayeque, from the platform of the Ministry of Health.


If you feel the call, please email us at cynthiaingar@gmail.com to become a Hampi Warmi Educator and share our woman wisdom to girls and women, wherever you are based, as we also provide an online training, with the same depth and richness. We now provide the "Menstrual Health and Sexual Education Program for Teens" and the "Menstrual Consciousness Program for Women" in this online format. Personal classes are given via Skype with sharing of educational documents & materials and email exchange for personal assignments.

* Note: Education fees (Hampi Warmi Institute certificate included) help support Hampi Warmi's free programs serving Andean girls & women of Peru since 2008.

(In construction ..)

Hampi Warmi in France! MaMaste Festival (3,4,5 june 2016, Site de la Bastille de Grenoble)

We had the opportunity to participate in MaMaste Festival in France, the 1st Festival in France dedicated to pregnant women and parenting!

It happened in the Bastille at Grenoble (yes, inside an ancient historic place!) on the top of the mountain, with the warmth of coming Summertime already in the air. There were different conferences and ateliers (workshops) on issues around conscious pregnancy and parenting as yoga for pregnant women, perineum awareness, yoga for mother-baby & for father-baby!, pre-natal & family chant, breastfeeding, baby massage, baby-wearing, baby sign-language, how to respond to tantrums, among others.

There was also a round table at the beginning of the festival about the "birthing" of birthing homes (maisons de naissance) or birth centers in France. This "alternative" movement around birthing options is beginning to blossom in the country, and rapidly this year. Birthing centers have been inexistent before, but couples found their way to actively influence the National Council of Professional Midwives and the fruit is that there are 9 maisons de naissances to be opened soon this year (project approved only last November 2015, press release*); one opening in Grenoble (Isere), La Maison.

This is GREAT news!!

* Here is the press release (november 2015) for those of you reading French: http://www.ordre-sages-femmes.fr/actualites/maisons-de-naissance-neuf-structures-ouvriront-bientot-leurs-portes/