Don't forget traditional medical care

EDITOR—As midwives and reproductive health educators in Mexico we work with two systems of health care: western biomedicine and indigenous traditional medicine. These systems have different concepts and practice and run in parallel, sometimes together and sometimes in opposition. For example, families living in poor rural and peripheral urban areas may be told that the best of all solutions is to be found in hospitals with skilled medical staff. They have to travel long distances, at great difficulty and considerable cost, to be offered …