Maternal care policies for Indigenous women across the pregnancy-postpartum cycle: insights from Indigenous health service managers

Abstract

The objective was to identify assistance policies about the pregnancy-puerperal cycle of indigenous women, from the perspective of indigenous health service managers. Action research, supported by complexity thinking, car-ried out with ten managers of indigenous health services in the municipality of Querência, Mato Grosso, based on focus groups, in two different meetings, between May and October 2023. Da analysis resulted in three thematic axes: weaknesses associated with indigenous women’s prenatal care; tactics that strengthen the pregnancy-puerperal cycle; and strategies that induce best practices in the indigenous context. It is concluded that the pregnancy-puerperal cycle of indigenous women, from the perspective of indigenous health service managers, comprises unique cultural speci-ficities associated with language, ethnicity, values, access and inviolable religious beliefs, which transcend scientific rationality, normally established as absolute truth.