Health during pregnancy: a project combining science and Indigenous knowledge in Côte-Nord

In Uashat mak Mani-utenam, near Sept-Îles, researcher Julie Lavoie, PhD student Olivier Chenette-Stewart and master’s student Aurélie Boutin-Bruce are collaborating on a new project with the Innu community.

Their goal is to better understand typical physical activity among pregnant women, to create tools designed to encourage them to stay active, preventing complications like diabetes or gestational hypertension.

A kinesiologist by training, Julie Lavoie is a researcher and the Chair of the School of Kinesiology and Physical Activity Sciences at Université de Montréal. She firmly believes that pregnancy is a key period for implementing healthy life habits, whether at the personal or the familial level.

Marceline Tshernish, Director of the health sector for the community of Uashat mak Mani‑utenam, part of the Innu band council, and Lavoie are working in partnership on this project centring science, listening, cultural translation and respect for Indigenous knowledge.

This interview was done to honour National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Q: What inspired this research project, and why did you choose to partner with the community at Uashat?

A: As a researcher and a mother, myself, I noticed that medical professionals rarely brought up physical activity during pregnancy. Even though its benefits are well-established.

Thanks to a local contact, the opportunity to work with the Uashat community just presented itself. It worked out for us because we wanted to work somewhere outside of the usual context of big cities.

Uashat is a very accepting, open-minded and dedicated community. It was really important to us to see the community’s historical connection with physical activity. Prior to colonization, when Innu women were pregnant, they stayed active, walking, hunting and carrying around their children. Staying active was natural for them.

Through this project, the community experienced a return to their origins and a new way of promoting their cultural practices.

Q: What are the concrete goals of this project?

A: Starting this fall, we’ll start to figure out current physical activity trends among pregnant women in the Sept-Îles region, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Are they active? What activities are they doing? Are their health care professionals discussing physical activity with them?

Then, we want to create simple and tailored tools to help doctors and nurses provide better care to Innu patients. The goal is for their guidance to be useful, realistic, culturally informed and based in traditional knowledge.

Q: How are cultural and local realities involved in the scientific process?

A: Our team started by speaking with and listening to the community through many virtual meetings. We then went to Uashat mak Mani‑utenam to meet our partners in person and to visit their facilities. Next, with input from community members, we co-authored the questionnaire on physical activity, including region specific activities—hunting, fishing, snowmobile. The questionnaire was translated into Innu-aimun and approved by the community.

We also organized talking circles for pregnant women with health care professionals to encourage turnout and build recommendations and tailored tools together.

Q: Were there any obstacles during the project?

A: Yeah, as with any research project. Securing funding is always a challenge. It requires a lot of balancing of academic research practises and Indigenous ways of living. For example, we have to provide a data management plan, but in that community, knowledge is transmitted orally, in confidence. So, we have to adapt, be creative and find a middle ground.

Q: What did you learn both personally and as a researcher from this collaboration?

A: I was really struck by the enthusiasm of the whole community. When we showed up in person, in 2023, people would say: “Finally, a project about physical activity and pregnancy!”

Through working with the community, I realized that research can be a place for reconciliation and bonding. This partnership made me consider the prejudice still present in the health care system today against patients from First Nations, and the importance of deconstructing stereotypes and changing assumptions.

Q: What advice would you give to colleagues looking to work with First Nations?

A: You have to have humility and an open mind, forget all of your plans. Listen, ask questions and find a way forward together, step by step. And accept that it will take time. But the time that you invest will lead to better results that are more useful and especially more realistic, in terms of their health and daily life.

Interview transcribed by Bruno Geoffroy