Mistreatment in childbirth, a human rights and healthcare problem, new study warns |
New additions, Dignity and respect in maternity carespotlight How are women and their babies treated during childbirth? and provide an avenue to improve facility-based care.
Human rights issue
Promote it Abuse of “pregnant women, adolescent girls and people and infants” is a “pervasive global problem”, WHO warn women everywhere facing violations of their rights – including the right to privacy, informed consent and the right to a trusted companion of choice throughout childbirth bloom.
Among the egregious human rights violations, basic human and care standards are faced during childbirth, including those in labor who are admitted for a caesarean section without permission. informed consent, and postpartum mothers are detained for days after childbirth, to profit from care.
Furthermore, cases of alleged infants are swapped in nurseries to more powerful and affluent families; those who are giving birth are beaten and humiliated; mothers and infants are separated; and those in labor are ridiculed for their choices and forced to endure treatment they do not want.
Loss of trust in medical facilities
Base on the research, Parental and infant abuse during the neonatal period is often ‘normalized’ in hospital culture and exacerbated by a lack of awareness of patient rights, gender discrimination, and a lack of clinical empathy skills.
Such experiences of abuse contribute to an erosion of trust in the healthcare facility, which means that women are less likely to access facility care before, during, and after childbirth.
This can have serious consequences for the health and well-being of women and their babies and can even put their lives in jeopardy, the United Nations health agency reports. .
“Improving women’s experiences throughout labor and delivery is essential to help increase women’s confidence in care,” said Özge Tunçalp, WHO Health Officer and the agency. care in the facility – as well as ensuring access to quality postpartum care after birth”. Research Program HRP.
Learn, improve the quality of care
New supplement published in BMJ Global Health outlines the path to respectful maternity care through national policies, and changes at the grassroots level, but also at the community level to challenge the normalization of abuse.
WHO/HRP states that respectfully achieving maternity care is the bare minimum “should and can be made available to everyone, everywhere, right now”, and calls for zero tolerance for any form of abuse.
“When women and their babies receive respectful, quality, person-centred care, they are more likely to have access to medical staff and they are more likely to access potentially life-saving care in a medical facility.”
According to researchers it is needed to better understand and improve women’s experiences of child maltreatment but also during maternity care.
For that reason, they are calling for more research, focusing on new ways of collecting data, understanding how experiences change depending on context and how these experiences impact outcomes. overall.
About the new addition
The study draws on evidence from a WHO multinational study on the positive effects of labor companionship, the need to strengthen privacy measures, and improve ways to measure experience and engagement. Women’s satisfaction during childbirth, in any health care facility.