The yurt isn’t merely a shelter; the physical structure directly mirrors kinship networks — the interlocking wooden Kerege represents the clans, while the central Tunduk symbolizes a shared heritage connecting the entire community under one sky. The roots of this nomadic culture was a deeply interconnected, local support system and precisely what a functional healthcare model should look like. Inside the historic birthing Yurt, the clinical delivery model was pragmatic. The traditional Kyrgyz midwife, the kindik ene (mother of the umbilical cord) provided an alabakan (birthing stick) for gravity-assisted labor and enforced a 40-day postpartum seclusion (kyrk chykaruu) to serve the mother, serving her iron rich meat based stews, limiting pathogen exposure and ensuring physiological recovery.

Today, Missouri’s severe morbidity and mortality rates in the postpartum period are worse than Kyrgyzstans despite the U.S. spending five times more per capita per birth. When evaluating the rural and urban core provider network in Missouri, the absence of the primary maternal community foundation is the root of our current crisis. We have traded smaller community facilities for large aggregated technology intense facilities, isolating rural, vulnerable populations and starving urban communities of basic services. For thirteen years, I operated a midwife-led birth center serving Missouri’s low risk pregnant women based on the principles of localized, physiological care. Each birth suite was its own Yurt, focused on the mother and her family. In Missouri, we have a vibrant history of Black, 1900’s Euro-immigrant, and Indigenous midwifery waiting to be re-discovered and incorporated into the full spectrum of world class healthcare. I am grateful for Mizzou Study Abroad connecting me to the people of Kyrgyzstan and our shared passion for mothers and babies.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: Politics and Society in Central Asia