Discursive practices about the decisionmaking power of women in childbirth

Abstract

This article analyzed the decision-making power of women in childbirth expressed in the discursive practices of nurses and resident physicians in the area of obstetrics. Qualitative study with 22 residents of a maternity hospital. Data were collected through interviews and submitted to discourse analysis following Michel Foucault’s views. The discursive practices focus on risk control and normalization of the cooperative behavior of the parturient woman, culminating in restrictions on the decision-making power of women. They also value the humanization of childbirth, through the protagonism and co-responsibility of women, stressing the medical knowledge-power. It was evident an anchor in medicalization, reproduced by midwifery teaching, and in the neoliberal logic, associating women’s self-government to consumption. Autonomy and health as rights need to be strengthened by the social actors of midwifery teaching and assistance.