Question

How does a mother’s LEK impact Tsimane child health

Answer 1

Ans :

Tsimane is an indigenous Amazonian population of lowland Bolivia. Within Tsimane families, women have primary responsibility for childcare. Therefore it is expected that maternal attributes will affect children more directly than paternal attributes. Maternal LEK (Local Ethnobotanical Knowledge) empower Tsimane community, as women are experts in using plants to prevent and treat infectious diseases. They have limited access to commercial foods and medicines and because of that they exploit local natural resources to maintain the health of their children. The Tsimane mother's wide knowledge to use local plant resources for medicine contributes directly to the well-being of her children. Since women take primary responsibility of childcare they transmit their LEK and skills to children at a relatively young age and children are able to medicate themselves. From this aspect we find that mothers with higher levels of LEK on plant knowledge have healthier children in Tsimane population.