Obstetric violence from the perspective of health professionals: Gender as a defining factor in childbirth care

Abstract

One in every four Brazilian women suffer some form of violence during labor and childbirth, with labor and childbirth care being marked by unnecessary interventions that lead to the depersonalization and inferiorization of women. We conducted an exploratory study using semi-structured interviews to analyze obstetric violence in the form of gender bias in the narratives of childbirth care providers. The findings show that childbirth care is permeated by submission, physical, verbal and psychological abuse and based on an interventionist model that “pessimizes” childbirth. Underpinned by a pessimistic view of the female body and hegemonic knowledge predicated on the excessive medicalization of childbirth, the mother becomes an object of intervention because she is considered inferior.