Ethno-obstetrics combinations in hospitals: Clinical networks of transition towards healthcare humanization

Abstract

Objective. This study analyzes the degree of implementation of the new humanist care guidelines for low risk childbirth at hospitals in Spain and their influence on the creation of new clinical care networks. Methodology. An ethnographic approach was used based on participant observation at a delivery room of the Spanish public healthcare system and on a series of semi structured interviews with mothers attended to at given center, resulting in eight hundred and seventy-four hours of observation and twenty mothers interviewed. Results. Results show a shift towards networks of clinics offering humanist driven childbirth assistance, a transformation taking place over a background of a still medicalized care dynamics. Conclusions. One can conclude that new mixed care networks are being generated halfway between interventionism and assistance humanization, such networks being still subject to the idyossincrasies and philosophies of the different professionals involved, yet allowing to believe in an important step being taken towards a humanization that some may still regard as a transgression to the clinically established order.