Partería Montuna (Mountain Midwifery)Because our healer’s journey started at these elements' interconnection.
Accompaniment
Preventive Natural Gynecology
Comprehensive education/ care for all sexual and reproductive health/ pregnancy experiences and outcomes
Preservation of traditional cultural healing practices in PR
Collective Healing
Partera, DEM
Multilingual We are your Partera Comunitaria (Community Midwife, DEM) providing accompaniment, coaching, education, and care services during any journey, stage, experience, or outcome of your sexual and reproductive health life. These expand from sexuality, puberty, fertility, pregnancy, childbirth-postpartum, gender affirmative therapy, abortion, perinatal loss, and menopause, to end of life. We believe that we are your companions and partners in preventive healthcare and education as you are the primary voice, with the right and power to make decisions about your own body, and we are here to listen and guide you through that process and those decisions.
10/26/2025
✨Meet the face behind Montuna✨
¡Hola! I’m Jacoba (elle)—born in the mountains of Borikén (Puerto Rico) where we walk barefoot in the rain, sip café with neighbors at 3pm, and grow what we eat.
Those roots still guide me as I paddle rivers, talk to dogs, and tend gardens in Skokie, IL—my home in the diaspora.
I’ve spent 20+ years walking with communities as a:
✨Partera (Direct-Entry Midwife)
✨Sexual Health Educator & Coach
✨Integrative Health & Herbal Practitioner
✨Full-Spectrum + End-of-Life Doula
✨Somatic & Energy Worker
But before any title, I am a Santigüadora & Yerbetera—because my Abuela said so.
My work blends ancestral healing + evidence-based care to honor body autonomy, story, and culture.
I support people through:
🌿 Fertility & womb care
🤰 Birth & postpartum
💔 Abortion, miscarriage & loss
🔥 Sexual pleasure & trauma healing
🌙 Menopause & life transitions
I serve North Chicago + Northern Illinois, offer virtual care year-round, and hold in-person sessions in Puerto Rico in winter/spring.
My mission?
Decolonize health. Restore ancestral wisdom. Center the Global Majority.
This path hasn’t been easy—I stepped away from birth work to heal my own fertility grief. I learned that healing isn’t going back…it’s becoming.
I don’t lead or follow—
I walk beside you. In care, in companionship, in power. 💛
Let’s journey together.
CPM, LMT, SpBCPE, SpBAP. Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT), Spinning Babies Certified Parent Educator and Spinning Babies Aware Practitioner. Yoni Steam Facilitator, craniosacral therapist, and dedicated keeper of traditional cuarentena—postpartum care rooted in birth rituals and holistic healing.
Owner of Partería 7 Generaciones Midwifery
New Director of Birth Center of Chicago !!!!
We love her because she is a badass that loves uplifting our immigrant communities, she loves hiking to find Spirit, clear our minds, and find healing and joy, just like us (and why we love hiking with her) ❤
Trans men & nonbinary people with ovaries can also experience menopause — naturally, after surgery, or even while on testosterone.
Here’s what you should know
🔥 Symptoms can show up differently
Hot flashes, mood changes, low libido, vaginal dryness…
Testosterone can mask or mimic some symptoms, making it hard to tell what’s menopause vs hormones.
The emotional impact is real
Menopause can trigger:
✨ Gender dysphoria
✨ Body changes that feel uncomfortable
✨ Grief or confusion about identity
( Know you’re not alone — and you deserve affirming care.)
Treatment can be very gender-affirming
Menopause care isn’t “one size fits all.”
Options can include:
✅ Staying on T
✅ Low-dose estrogen or progesterone (for bones/heart)
✅ Local vaginal estrogen (doesn’t change your whole body)
✅ Non-hormonal support (herbs, lifestyle, SSRIs)
Biggest barrier?
Lack of providers who understand trans & nonbinary menopause.
People often have to advocate for their own care. We need better training, visibility, and inclusion in research.
❗️(if you are a provider consider getting certified as a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP) with The Menopause Society)❗️
Our thoughts?
Menopause in trans & nonbinary bodies is valid.
It deserves informed, compassionate, and affirming support — medically and emotionally.
Let’s normalize the conversation then!
(join our workshop in December 13 with our friend Terri Kapsalis )
Getty Images/timnewman from Healthline article " Ask the Expert: What to Know About Menopause When You’re Trans or Nonbinary"
10/18/2025
Honoring World Menopause Day with a truth we don’t talk about enough…
We're loving this article on mapping testosterone through the menstrual cycle because it reminds us:
Menopause is NOT just about estrogen.
Testosterone matters too.
It affects energy, libido, motivation, mood, muscle, and overall vitality—yet most providers never test it or even mention it for people with ovaries.
Key points from the article:
✨ Testosterone naturally rises and falls through the cycle
✨ It influences way more than “sex drive”
✨ Levels often drop in perimenopause & menopause
✨ Understanding hormones = body literacy + agency
This article made us reflect t beyond the old “estrogen loss” story and look at the whole hormonal picture.
Menopause isn’t something to survive—it’s a sacred transition that deserves education, holistic care, and respect.
On , (yes, today October 18) let’s call for:
🔥Inclusive research
🔥Hormone education beyond estrogen
🔥Culturally rooted, trauma-informed support
🔥Care that honors the WHOLE body
Menopause is powerful (and also sucks! That is true and ok!)
We deserve to be supported in every layer of it. 💛🔥
Contact us if needing support at link in our Bio
Article by Dr Jen Gunter available @ The Vajenda Substack
10/18/2025
ICE fears put pregnant immigrants and their babies at risk
“Fear of ICE is pushing my patients and their families away from the very systems meant to protect their health and their pregnancies,” said Dr. Josie Urbina, an OB-GYN in San Francisco."
This article from The 19th News exposes a terrifying truth: pregnant immigrants in the U.S. are forced to choose between essential prenatal, abortion, or emergency care—and the risk of detention or deportation by ICE. On paper, programs like Medicaid expansion or EMTALA promise care. In reality, fear, data sharing, surveillance, and the cooperation between hospitals and ICE keep immigrants from walking through the door.
Reproductive rights mean nothing without immigration protections. ICE raids, detention, deportation, and government enforcement are tools of reproductive control. They strip bodily autonomy, separate families, and endanger the lives of pregnant people. This is not “law and order”—it is state violence.
The article also raises key questions about birthing options, midwifery, and equity. Many immigrant families would feel safer birthing at home or in community care settings—away from hospital systems tied to government surveillance. But the U.S. severely limits access to midwives and home birth, especially for marginalized communities.
The conclusion is clear: reproductive justice and immigration justice are inseparable. To protect pregnant people, we must end government and ICE violence, expand midwifery and community-based care, and ensure that every birth space—home or hospital—is safe, accessible, and free from state terror
image: Pregnant person by the door holding her belly.
10/17/2025
FDA has tentatively approved a generic version of mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortion. At first glance, this looks like a win—generic drugs usually mean lower cost and wider access. But politically, the situation is far more complex.
This approval does not guarantee access.
Patent battles, lawsuits, and conservative courts could still block or delay distribution. The same anti-abortion politicians and judges who tried to restrict mifepristone at the Supreme Court are likely to target this generic version too.
The article makes one thing clear: abortion access is controlled by politics, not science.
Mifepristone has been safely used for over 20 years. Yet it remains one of the most restricted medications in the U.S.—not because of medical risk, but because of ideological pressure.
Even if the generic is allowed to launch, many barriers remain:
☑️ State abortion bans and criminalization
☑️ Pharmacies refusing to dispense the drug
☑️ Telehealth restrictions
☑️ Immigration status and fear of surveillance
☑️ Cost, transportation, and stigma
Access on paper is not access in reality.
We need community-based care, midwives, community health workers, Doulas, and providers trained in full-spectrum reproductive health. Midwives and clinics already use misoprostol-only protocols when mifepristone is restricted—showing creativity and resilience in hostile systems.
To make medication abortion truly accessible, we must:
✅ Protect and expand midwives and community providers
✅ Decriminalize self-managed abortion
✅ Remove FDA and state restrictions
✅ Ensure affordability and confidentiality
✅ Challenge political interference in health care
The FDA’s move is a symbolic step forward—but it also exposes how fragile abortion access remains. Until we build systems rooted in reproductive justice, not politics, true freedom over our bodies will still be out of reach.
In Montuna, we stand with immigrant families in Chicago and across the nation—and we firmly stand against ICE and this fascist government's brutal tactics that terrorize our communities.
Reproductive justice means more than the right to have or not have children—it means the right to raise our families in safe, healthy, and liberated environments.
When families are separated, detained, or deported…
When people fear seeking healthcare because of immigration status…
When state violence targets our bodies, our homes, and our dignity…
That is a reproductive justice issue.
We believe every person—regardless of immigration status—deserves safety, healthcare, freedom from fear, and the ability to make decisions about their bodies and their families without state violence.
To protect reproductive freedom, we must defend immigrant rights.
We stand with our people, always!
image: poster with the figure of a parent with their child and a text that says : "You deserve to live in peace with your family, not be separated by borders. Immigrant justice is reproductive justice"
Art by Repeal Hyde Art Project
10/14/2025
🌿 You deserve care that feels like home.
At Montuna, we support every chapter of your sexual and reproductive journey—with tenderness, culture, and community at the center.
✨ Fertility & Body Literacy
✨ Pregnancy & Birth Support
✨ Holistic Postpartum Care
✨ Perinatal Loss & Abortion Companionship
✨ Sexual Wellness & Somatic Healing
✨ Natural Gyn & Traditional Practices
💛 We carry our Abuelas in our hands as we care for you.
You don’t have to walk this path alone.
Accepting new clients for November! Hablamos Español.
And a good podcast we listed to on our drive to Rockford, IL
From He To She In First Grade | With Jennifer Beals
"There was not a single moment where she did become sure," Laurie says. "Over winter break, when she was no longer going to school everyday, she asked us to switch to female pronouns. And that was the moment for me. But even then I thought, well, we'll try this for a little while, and maybe she'll go back, and that's ok too. I think in her mind, it was a slow and indistinct transition, and so she made it in a slow and indistinct way. But once she landed there, all of the ambiguity went away."
Laurie is grateful that both the kids and teachers in her daughter's life have been supportive — and largely unphased — by this change.
"This kind of a shift doesn't mean to them what it means to adults in the world. They are kids and they are changing all the time. She's not the only transgender kid in her elementary school, [or] her community. To the adults in her life, this is still on our radar, because we are looking out for her and making sure that she's safe and loved and accepted and protected and embraced. And I think that for most of the kids, it doesn't even pass through their minds anymore."
image: A yellow school bus full of students drawing
10/12/2025
We recently enjoyed this article, good refresher:
Sexual Health Must Be Anti-Racist: A Reflection for Educators & Providers
Written by Terri Harris
"Undoing some of these traumas means more than diversifying resources. As an educator, practitioner or organisation you must actively think about how the services you provide are steeped within historical, social and political racial ideas. Ideas that affect communities of colour differently to their white counterparts. You must think about how
-the health implications of STIs and contraception will affect people of colour differently. Mostly due to the lack of research afforded to these minority groups and the stereotypes attributed to these communities.
-ideas of beauty, body shape and dieting will negatively affect self-esteem, fetishise communities of colour and impact on their interaction with pornography, body image and sex.
-communities of colour are less likely to receive pain medication or have their conditions acknowledged by healthcare professionals when seeking medical interventions.
-legacies of colonialism have created cultural practices and ideas which may inform reproductive rights, gender identities and access to SRH services."
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Mujer Montuna was born in 2008 as my spiritual reconciliation with the mountains of San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. It was created initially as a space to work, create and conspire; with and for women identified people, and people, at mountain communities of PR.
It has transformed into a Social-Agricultural-Healing Justice project that we work on a daily basis with and for the community, around herbalism, permaculture, health and popular education practices.
Mujer Montuna’s mission is to reach social justice by encouraging transformative organizing for community sustainability and autonomy via the preservation and dissemination of ancestral practices of collective healing, agriculture, and education. Our target groups are communities of color with scarce resources, with a special focus on women identified people* within rural/ marginalized areas
Mama Aicha is a sub-project of Mujer Montuna. “Mama” as we say in Puerto Rico to a woman identified person we love, or we approach with love. An independent project that offers a compassionate support to communities and its people to obtain full spectrum s*xual and reproductive health education and care services. We do this with a popular education, social-healing-reproductive justice, feminist, and decolonizing framework, training and organizing Health Workers in our communities on self-managed health techniques and bringing health prevention practices to where it always ancestrally belonged; into our people's hands!
We do Reproductive/Sexual Health Education and Services: Fertility. Conception. Prenatal classes. Birth. Postpartum. Breast/Chest feeding. Womb "sobadas". Reiki. Vaginal Health/ Steam Baths. Full Spectrum Birth Worker. Abortion Companionship and training of Abortion companions. Alternative inseminations. Midwife trained. Everything in sync with what our ancestors taught us.
Together we built La Cabaña, a place where people gather, conspire ideas and dreams, take classes, heal and meet. The cabin was made with mucho love by Papi and our own hands, among the hands of my neighbors. With same love we ask people to enter through its doors.
Our Values:
Reproductive Justice because we understand people have the right of power to make decisions about their bodies, gender, s*xuality, families and communities; but of those, some are most marginalized than others.
Inter-sectional Power, because we understand in this system people’s identities determine their power, as deny power to others.
Cultural Competence, because we believe People’s cultural differences should be respected, honored and manage appropriately by other people and systems.
Decolonizing, because systems are not lineal for everybody and can oppress some people, and might not determine values for others. We aim to bring health prevention practices to where it always ancestrally belonged; into our people's hands!
Popular Education because we promote conversations and organizing education in the base; BY the people, WITH the people and FOR the people.
Hope and Joy, because we know historically our communities of color have been threatened with tearing off our joy and hope, and we are here to safeguard these values.
With love, Jackie, o , La Jacoba
*Note: Trans women are women. People don’t need to have uterus nor vaginas to be part of our groups! Trans men have benefited from our workshops as well. Every diversity of body is welcome!
