Childbirth in Brazil: medical intervention or protagonism of the woman?

Abstract

Childbirth is a historically natural event that ends gestation, turning the woman into a mother. The change from home delivery to hospital delivery in Brazil occurred in the 20th century, with the increasing evolution of hospital care, following the trend of developed countries. This article aims to delineate the historical evolution in Brazil of the care of women in childbirth, beginning in the nineteenth century and the main types of childbirth that currently play a role. An exploratory bibliographical research was carried out through government documents, books and periodicals on official Brazilian government websites and electronic databases such as Google Academic, LILACS and SciELO. The used keywords were: normal delivery; humanized birth; cesarean section; and midwife between January and April 2018. The selection of the eligible texts and the evaluation of their methodological quality was independently performed by four reviewers, excluding articles that were not covered by the proposed theme or were dated less than the year 2003. Based on this study , it was possible to identify the main types of childbirth and the evolution of the birth contemplating, the problematic of the process of hospitalization of the childbirth and the attempts of the social movements and actions of public policies, in order to restrain this process and to resize to the delivery assistance in the optics of humanization. In order for the woman to regain the will of her will, and to hold the right to choose the type of delivery she wishes to guarantee a unique and untransferable experience in the history of her motherhood and to guarantee this role of the woman in childbirth, multiprofessional team to be prepared to adopt good practices, reduce intervention in childbirth care and prevent violence against women.