In many countries, childbirth still includes a variety of routine medical interventions, such as labour-inducing drugs, the lithotomic position, episiotomies and an excess of surgical deliveries. These interventions are also used in women with low-risk pregnancies, despite WHO recommendations and the findings of evidence-based medicine on the topic.
Sometimes women can be coerced into accepting medical interventions or these interventions are performed without their consent. In some cases, this coercion can be not explicit, i.e. related to the authoritativeness of biomedical knowledge and power issues in the doctor-patient relationship.
In Latin America, over the past decade, the term “obstetric violence” (OV) has become part of the legal framework. The concept refers to acts in the context of labour and birth categorised as physically or psychologically violent due to unjustified use of medical interventions. Specific laws against OV– a type of gender-based violence and violation of human rights – exist in Venezuela, Argentina, several States of Mexico and the State of S. Catarina in Brazil and Uruguay.
In Europe, the issue is raised by human rights organisations and social movements, but no country has passed legislation on the matter yet. The concept is far from receiving sufficient critical examination within biomedical practice and public policy, and it is not seen as a potential tool for rethinking and improving birth care policies and practices.
The project objective is transferring Latin American experiences on recognising and preventing OV to the European context in order to provide decision makers with an innovative tool for rethinking the quality of birth care services and providing society with new ways to discuss childbirth issues.
Specific objectives are:
1) Analysing the historical, social and political processes that led to the legal recognition of OV in some Latin American countries, focusing on Argentina.
2) Analysing the impact that this recognition has had on birth care services and on the training of the next generation of health providers.
3) Identifying and transferring good practice and tools from the Argentinian and Latin American experience and supporting a process of social and political recognition of OV in the European context, especially in countries where medical intervention in child labour and childbirth is common, as in Italy and Spain.
4) Designing and implementing a Platform on Obstetric Violence, as an innovative point of reference on the matter for decision makers and training managers in health issues.
