Doña Leonida’s Hands: A Legacy of Life and Love, & the Footsteps that Follow

The midwife Doña Leonida with midwifery advocate Kate del Rocío, whose baby she delivered.

For forty years, Leonida Canul Pool, now 64, has devoted her hands and her heart to bringing new life into the world. In the Maya community of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, in the Mexican southern state of Quintana Roo, she is more than a midwife—she is a guardian of life, health and tradition.

Midwifery runs through Leonida’s blood. Her mother and grandmother were both midwives. At first, she was afraid to follow in their footsteps. But her mother insisted: “You must learn. One day, you’ll care for your own children, your daughters-in-law, and your grandchildren.”

She still remembers her first delivery vividly—helping a 21-year-old woman named Clara bring a baby girl into the world. “I wrote it in my little notebook,” she recalls with a smile. “I was so happy and proud.”

Many women in her community turn to hospitals for their first birth, but they often come to Leonida for their next, sometimes describing poor hospital treatment. “They tell me, ‘At the hospital they don’t let me eat or drink. At home I can walk, lie down, have my atole. I feel cared for here.’”

Before each birth, Leonida lights a candle and whispers a prayer, asking God and the saints to protect mother and child. “My mother used to tell me that childbirth has its saints—St. Martha, St. Librada,” she says softly. “We ask them to walk beside us.” Midwives also have to know how to soothe women in labor, Leonida explains. “Daughter,” she tells women, “don’t think about the pain, it’s just a moment. Your child is forever.”

For women like Leonida, midwifery is not just a calling—it is an act of love and resistance.

One of those touched by her care is Kate del Rocío Yeh Chen, a young Indigenous women’s rights advocate and granddaughter of a midwife. When Kate struggled to conceive, she turned to Doña Leonida for help because In Maya communities, midwives are much more than women who deliver babies—they care for many other aspects of women’s and children’s health. “Soon after, I became pregnant,” she shares, her voice full of emotion.

“Doña Leonida’s secret is the love, patience, and care she gives to every woman.”

Today, Kate honors that legacy. With a degree in community health, she works at the Casa de la Mujer Indígena to defend women’s right to choose traditional midwifery and give birth free from fear and mistreatment. “Traditional midwifery is important because it carries the ancestral knowledge of the Maya people — knowledge that must be protected.”

Because of women like Leonida and Kate—and because of supporters like you—centuries of Maya wisdom continue to nurture and protect mothers and babies. Every birth, every heartbeat, every life welcomed into the world is part of that living legacy.