Health Content Advisory: This conversation centers on pregnancy and birth, including personal experiences. Please listen with care – mahalo.
In this life-affirming episode, we sit down with PuaOEleili Pinto - mother of two, cultural health provider, and keeper of lomilomi, lāʻau lapaʻau, and Hawaiian childbirth traditions. Raised in Kailua, Oʻahu, with ancestral roots across Maui and Hawaiʻi Island, Pua honors her lineage through both research and lived practice via Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo, the company she founded to teach Hawaiian healing and birth. She shares how Hawaiian history, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, sound, and land restoration shaped her journey and guided the reclamation of ʻŌiwi birthing practices. Reflecting on her own birth experiences, Pua explores rebuilding trust in body wisdom, blending Hawaiian and Western healing methods, and restoring birth as a family-centered journey. The conversation also touches on food sovereignty, highlighting traditional Hawaiian food and the distinction between food and medicine, and the critical role of restoring Hawaiian forests as the foundation of well-being for all life. This episode is a reminder that indigenous practices are living, vital, and essential for healing families and communities today.
Episode Highlights
00:52 – Exploring Hawaiian birth practices
01:30 – Connecting to home: Kailua
05:32 – Navigating joy and challenges in Hawaiian healing
07:21 – In her ancestors' footsteps - re-membering birth practices
10:09 – Traditional Hawaiian medicine
14:27 – Connecting past and present in birthing practices
24:16 – Creating safe birthing spaces
26:57 – Discovering pregnancy and early challenges
29:05 – Helping others overcome birth trauma
30:29 – Empowering couples in birth
32:29 – The role of ancestral practices in birth
37:22 – The importance of Hawaiian diet in pregnancy
38:38 – Advocating for Hawaiian food and food sovereignty
42:35 – Restoring the Native Hawaiian forest
46:00 – Future hopes
Pregnancy and Birthing Resources:
- PuaOEleili's Cultural Birth Education Website: Ēwe ʻOiaʻiʻo
- PuaOEleili’s Online Birth Course
- Cookbooks & Resource Library
- Must We Wait in Despair
- ʻO ʻOe nō Paha Ia e ka Lau o ke Aloha – An Essay by Kīhei de Silva
- Nohopapa – Hawaiian Cultural Heritage Stewardship Services
- Motherwit – Postpartum Food Delivery
- Kauluakalana
- Kaulunani Urban & Community Forestry Project
- “Grow Hawaiʻi” Book – Native Books Hawaiʻi
- Hawaiʻi Forest Institute – Go Native: Growing a Native Hawaiian Urban Forest
- Awaiaulu Kīpapa – Hawaiʻi History Educator Resources
PuOEleili's Academic Research
- Pua kanikawī kanikawā: The Intimacy of Hawaiian Childbirth
- Native Hawaiian Complementary Feeding Practices as Told by Grandparents
Episode Photo: PuaOEleili Pinto and Kicking Bird Photography
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Credits
🎙️ Host & Producer: Molly Mamaril
🎸 Guitar: Amund Gismervik
A Diversity of Experiences: Guests on Heartbeat Narratives share their own perspectives and experiences. Their views do not necessarily reflect those of the host or the podcast. We invite you to listen with an open mind and enjoy the joy and insight offered from many different vantage points.
