HUMANIZED CHILDBIRTH: A TRANSDICIPLINARY REVIEW

Abstract

The Humanized Childbirth movement is characterized by the intellectual, technical, and professional union of several areas that focus on the quality of care received by pregnant women, babies, and family members during the process of childbirth. In the last four decades, specific knowledge about the birth process has undergone several updates, mainly concerning less interventionist assistance. However, in many contexts, labor is still seen as pathological or non-physiological and culminates in questionable interventions in the female body. This profound distortion in childbirth care is determined by multiple historical, structural, and cyclical factors that directly affect the way society in general and the health area, in particular, face the female sex. Thus, it is imperative to critically discuss childbirth care with contextualization of gender, cultural, structural, and scientific issues (Evidence-Based Medicine) to guarantee the protection of the person about violations of sexual and reproductive rights. The approach of this literature review focused on the multiple meanings of the humanization process of childbirth care, with the concern of being transdisciplinary.