Medicalization of childbirth: The meanings attributed by the literature on childbirth care in Brazil

Abstract

This study analyzes the meanings attributed to the concept of the medicalization of childbirth from a narrative review of the literature in national journals published between 2000 and 2017. It is based on the more general concept of medicalization – understood as the process by which medicine broadens and consolidates its area of activity in the various sectors of society – and the different formulations of the concept con-ceived by twentieth-century scholars. Five categories were created that related the medicalization of childbirth with interventions, professional dis-pute, violation of the rights of pregnant women, the birth scenario, and the impact of the medical-ization of society. In the first four categories there is a predominance of meanings that explore the interface between medicalization and humaniza-tion, considered two analytical super categories, with a predominance of a critique of the medi-calized model. Setting aside this analysis model, the medicalization of childbirth category as a re-flection of the medicalization of society focuses on a sense of medicalization of childbirth as part of a broader process involving different actors who are part of the care process, pointing to a possibility of more in-depth analysis in which it considers the complex connection between modern health and society.