Ixchel or Ix Chel is the 16th-century name of the aged jaguar goddess of midwifery and medicine in ancient Maya culture.

She corresponds to Toci, an Aztec earth goddess inhabiting the sweatbath. She is related to another Aztec goddess invoked at birth, viz. Cihuacoatl (or Ilamatecuhtli).

In Taube's revised Schellhas-Zimmermann classification of codical deities, Ixchel corresponds to the Goddess O.

In the 1500s, Diego de Landa called Ixchel “the Goddess of making children”. He also mentioned her as the goddess of medicine, as shown by the following. In the month of Zip, the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by the physicians and shamans (hechiceros), and divination stones as well as medicine bundles containing little idols of "the Goddess of medicine whom they called Ixchel" were brought forward. In the Ritual of the Bacabs, Ixchel is once called "grandmother". In their combination, the goddess's two principal domains (birthing and healing) suggest an analogy with the aged Aztec goddess of midwifery, Toci.

Ixchel was already known to the Classical Maya. As Taube has demonstrated, she corresponds to Goddess O of the Dresden Codex, an aged woman with jaguar ears. A crucial piece of evidence in his argument is the so-called "Birth Vase", a Classic Maya container showing a childbirth presided over by various old women, headed by an old jaguar Goddess, the codical Goddess O; all have weaving implements in their headdresses. On another Classic Maya vase, Goddess O is shown acting as a physician, further confirming her identity as Ixchel. The combination of Ixchel with several aged midwives on the Birth Vase recalls the Tzʼutujil assembly of midwife goddesses called the "female lords", the most powerful of whom is described as being particularly fearsome.

The name Ixchel was in use in 16th-century Yucatán and amongst the Poqom in the Baja Verapaz. Its meaning is not certain. Assuming that the name originated in Yucatán, chel could mean "rainbow". Her glyphic names in the (Post-Classic) codices have two basic forms, one a prefix with the primary meaning of "red" (chak) followed by a portrait glyph ("pictogram"), the other one logosyllabic. Ix Chel's Classic name glyph remains to be identified. It is quite possible that several names were in use to refer to the goddess, and these need not necessarily have included her late Yucatec and Poqom name. Her codical name is now generally rendered as "Chak Chel".

In the past, it was common to take Ix Chel as the Yucatec name of the moon goddess because of a shared association with human fertility and procreation. The identification is questionable, however, since (1) colonial and ethnographical sources provide no direct evidence to show that Ixchel was a moon goddess and (2) the Classic Maya moon goddess, identifiable through her crescent, is invariably represented as a fertile young woman. Moreover, fertility and procreation are as important to an aged midwife as to a young mother, albeit in different ways.

An entwined serpent serves as Ixchel's headdress, crossed bones may adorn her skirt, and instead of human hands and feet, she sometimes has claws. Very similar features are found with Aztec earth goddesses, of whom Tlaltecuhtli, Toci, and Cihuacoatl were invoked by the midwives. Being a jaguar goddess, the Classic Ixchel (or 'Chak Chel') could equally be imagined as a fearsome female warrior equipped with shield and spear, not unlike Cihuacoatl in the latter's capacity of Yaocihuatl ('Warrior Woman').