Obstetric violence exercised by Mexican health system: case study

Abstract

Obstetric violence means extreme bodily control over a woman’s self-determination during childbirth. Medical practice establishes protocol guidelines to guarantee professional know-how through a mechanized intervention process, a rigid capacity for action, even a preference for professional judgment instead of the patient’s personal preferences. All these strategies are intended to ensure the well-being of the patient, but rejecting subjectivities or complex desires to be typified by the clinical approach instead of doing a humanized procedure that guarantees the active participation of the mother. In this case, our objective is to identify the main theoretical elements related to obstetric violence as the birth process, power dynamics and reproductive well-being, from the hermeneutical approach of a current real case. The narrative analysis reveals an unbalanced role play that generates an interpersonal relationship of power-submission that conditions the process of legitimation, decision-making and active participation of women, including their reproductive well-being as a human right.