Women on the scene: humanized childbirth and gender violence

Resumo

For centuries, childbirth was considered a private care of the female gender and was performed by midwives, women who transmitted their practical knowledge from each generation. With the advent of traditional medicine, childbirth became institutionalized as medical, male, safe and scientific knowledge, resulting in the marginalization of social practices. In this scenario, the woman is no longer considered an active and conscious subject, capable of gestating and giving birth according to her wishes, but subject to medical scrutiny and formal institutions of care. The submission of women to medical-hospital control at birth is part of a patriarchal view of the female body, as a nature to be "domesticated" by the biomedical culture, which deprives women of autonomy over their bodies.In this way, obstetric violence is characterized as another form of violation of women's human rights. This article aims to promote reflections on the importance of women's knowledge and the dispute with obstetric violence in the processes that involve the moment of parturition.Research on the subject allows one to observe that the gradual disappearance of midwives and their empirical knowledge about childbirth, combined with the consequent recognition of the technical approach to the detriment of the humanization of care for pregnant women, has been feeding this type of violation still silenced by society.