Selling Beautiful Births: The Use of Evidence by Brazil’s Humanised Birth Movement

Maternal health care continues to be excessively medicalised in many national health systems. Global, national, and local level policy initiatives seek to normalise low-risk birth and optimise the use of clinical interventions, informed by strong evidence supporting care that is centred on women’s preferences and needs. Challenges remain in translating evidence into practice in settings where care is primarily clinician-led and hospital-based, such as in Brazil.I conducted an ethnography of the movement for humanised care in childbirth in São Paulo between 2015 and 2018. I draw on interviews and focus groups with movement members (including mothers, doulas, midwives, obstetricians, politicians, programme leads, and researchers), and observations in health facilities implementing humanised protocols, state health council meetings, and key policy fora (including conferences, campaigning events, and social media). Key actors in this movement have been involved in the development and implementation of evidence-based policy programmes to “humanise” childbirth. Scientific evidence is used strategically alongside rights-based language, such as “obstetric violence”, to legitimise moral and ideological aims. When faced with resistance from pro-c-section doctors, movement members make use of other strategies to improve access to quality care, such as stimulating demand for humanised birth in the private health sector. In Brazil, this has led to a greater public awareness of the risks of the excessive medicalisation of birth but can reinforce existing inequalities in access to high-quality maternity care. Lessons might be drawn that have wider relevance in settings where policymakers are trying to reduce iatrogenic harm from unnecessary interventions in childbirth and for supporters of normal birth working to reduce barriers to access to midwifery-led, woman-centred care.

Characterization of obstetric care developed in teaching hospitals in a capital of northeast Brazil

ABSTRACT Objective: to describe the obstetric care developed in teaching hospitals (TH) in the city of Maceió-AL, intended for high-risk pregnancies. Methods: Retrospective cohort study performed between June and November 2018 with 291 women who received assistance with vaginal delivery, cesarean section, or abortion process in teaching hospitals selected as settings for this research. Data collection allowed the characterization of the interviewees as well as the assistance received and its relationship with obstetric violence. The analysis was performed using descriptive and analytical statistics with the aid of the Epi Info software (version 7.2.0.1) and measures that allowed the comparison of means and proportions. Results: All women reported at least one violent situation, contrary to recommendations based on scientific evidence. Conclusion: It becomes necessary to optimize professional training to deconstruct obstetric care based on medicalization and pathologization of pregnancy and strengthen science-based care.

Birth Experience, Postpartum PTSD and Depression before and during the Pandemic of COVID-19 in Russia

The aim of the study is to investigate the changes in the maternal healthcare system during the pandemic and their associations with maternal mental health in Russia. A sample of Russian women who gave birth during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 1645) and matched controls, i.e., women who gave birth before the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 611), completed an anonymous Internet survey about recent childbirth. They were assessed for childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and postpartum depression (PPD). Clinically relevant symptoms of PPD and PTSD were high before the pandemic and showed no significant change during the pandemic (p = 0.48 and p = 0.64, respectively). We found a notable increase in the frequency of obstetric violence (p = 0.015) during the pandemic, which, in turn, has a strong correlation with birth-related PTSD and PPD. The problem of ethical communication with patients among maternal healthcare professionals is acute in Russia, and it has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Family and doula support during labor can be a potential protective factor against obstetric violence.

Obstetric Violence as an Infringement on Basic Bioethical Principles. Reflections Inspired by Focus Groups with Midwives

Background: obstetric violence is still far too invisible; the word “violence” generates rejection and obstetric violence is complex to define and typify, as it is a subjective experience. It has been widely analyzed from legal, sociological, and clinical perspectives, but not equally so from the bioethical point of view. This article sets out to take a more in-depth look at the experiences of midwives in order to describe the ethical perspectives of obstetric violence. We intend to describe the effects that malpractice and violence within obstetric care have on American and European bioethical principles. Methodology: A qualitative methodology of the phenomenological tradition was used: 24 midwives participated in three focus groups. Results and Discussion: four categories were arrived at; they are “the maleficence of forgetting my vulnerability”, “beneficence requires respect for my integrity and dignity”, “my autonomy is being removed from me” and “a problem of social justice towards us, women”. Conclusion: obstetric violence infringes on the main bioethical principles (non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy, justice, vulnerability, dignity, and integrity). Beyond whether it is called violence or not, what matters from an ethical perspective is that, as long as women have such negative experiences during pregnancy and childbirth, obstetric care needs better humanizing.

Association Between Obstetric Violence and Symptoms Suggestive of Postpartum Depression

Background: Postpartum depression is a common condition in the pregnancy and postpartum cycle. The development of this condition is multifactorial and can be influenced by previous traumas. This study sought to verify whether there is an association between having been exposed to obstetric violence and presenting symptoms suggestive of postpartum depression.Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, with the inclusion of 287 women without complications in childbirth, randomly selected from two maternity hospitals of Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, in 2016. Four weeks after delivery, the postpartum women answered a face-to-face interview about socioeconomic aspects, obstetric history, health history, and childbirth experience (practices and interventions applied) and completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). From the perception of women regarding the practices performed in the context of childbirth care, a composite variable was created, using item response theory, to measure the level of obstetric violence. The items that made up this variable were: absence of a companion during delivery, feeling insecure and not welcome, lack of privacy, lack of skin-to-skin contact after delivery, not having understood the information shared with them, and not having felt comfortable to ask questions and make decisions about their care. To define symptoms suggestive of postpartum depression, reflecting on increased probability of this condition, the EPDS score was set at ≥8. Poisson Regression with robust variance estimation was used for modeling.Results: Women who experienced obstetric violence had a higher prevalence of symptoms suggestive of postpartum depression (PR 1.55 95% CI 1.07-2.25), as well as those with a history of mental health problems (PR 2.41 95% CI 1.15-5.05), while higher socioeconomic status (A and B) had an inverse association (PR 0.38 95% CI 0.19-0.78).Conclusions: Symptoms suggestive of postpartum depression seems to be more prevalent in women who have suffered obstetric violence, of low socioeconomic status, and with a history of mental health problems. Thus, qualifying care for women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum and reducing social inequalities are challenges to be faced in order to reduce the occurrence of postpartum depression.

Obstetric Violence in Their Own Words: How Women in Mexico and South Africa Expect, Experience, and Respond to Violence

This article, based on ethnographic research in Mexico and South Africa, presents two central arguments about obstetric violence: (a) structural inequalities across diverse global sites are primarily linked to gender and lead to similar patterns of obstetric violence, and (b) ethnography is a powerful method to give voice to women's stories. Connecting these two arguments is a temporal model to understand how women across the world come to expect, experience, and respond to obstetric violence—that is, before, during, and after the encounter. This temporal approach is a core feature of ethnography, which requires long-term immersion and attention to context.