In Babies and more we have talked extensively about childbirth care and about the large number of things that must still change with respect to births.
We have counted the maltreatments that are committed in some maternity hospitals, the lack of respect with which the parturients are sometimes treated and the difficulties that a mother usually crosses when she claims her right to give birth as she wants.
It is clear that It is imperative that childbirth care becomes more human and more sensitive to the needs of the mother, her partner and the baby, the true protagonists at that time.
Whatever the mother's preferences, the medical team must be there to support, advise, assist and of course inform about what she considers, but always giving her the opportunity to decide the woman.
As it has been said recently in a congress of experts “Spanish public hospitals (and I add: many private ones) continue to see the pregnant woman more as a sick woman than as a woman who is going to give birth to a child”.
The pregnant woman who is going to give birth becomes something like the container of a baby to be born, is ordered what to do, how and when without the right to say or "mu". Of course, that is not the concept of giving birth to a child.
I always defend the right for each woman to decide how she wants to give birth. Good information comes first and then everyone can choose how they want to give birth and where according to what is closest to their way of being and thinking. The important thing is that nobody chooses for you and of course you feel well treated in such an important moment in your life and in that of your baby.
I think that almost all of us have had experiences in childbirth care or in the follow-up of pregnancy that have not convinced us, that we have felt mistreated or that we should do what they told us without giving us a choice.
That cannot be, it must change. Nobody likes to be treated like that and less in such a special moment. There is a great emotional ingredient that is essential in the care for pregnant women. Sometimes it seems that professionals get into their work routine without differentiating whether they deal with plants or with people who have feelings, fears, needs and doubts.
In an event such as a birth nobody can deny that the emotional aspect is key in the development of childbirth. If the woman feels comfortable, restrained, loved and well treated, the delivery will be better, but feeling fearful, insecure and absent does not favor the physiological process of calving at all.
