Reading the article on ‘Respectful maternity care: giving birth (in)to a better world’ by Bradfield and Wilson has made me realize that respectful maternity care is not only a crucial component of quality of care; it is a human right. The practices that disrespect and mistreat childbearing women are a violation of women’s fundamental human rights are directly related to poor maternal and neonatal outcomes.
The drivers of mistreatment of women during pregnancy and childbirth are complex and involve people and systems. The system, which was thought to be made for us also affects us negatively. Bradfielf & Wilson (2020) stated that the industrialization of healthcare is no different from the industrialization of any other sector as it relies on the systems efficiencies of standardized units. The disrespect and mistreat childbearing women happens in this system when a woman’s care is impacted due to systems-based ‘efficiency’ requirements such as where labor is augmented because bed space is needed or when a woman is being induced earlier than needed because there’s no space in the hospital. This made me realize that respectful maternity care does not only rely on individuals but on the improvement of the healthcare system itself.
Bradfield and Wilson gave tangible ways that we can address the barriers to respectful maternity care specifically to; (1) to provide individual awareness of the ways that respectful maternity care could be implemented or enhanced within our own practice and (2) create the systems that will support us well into the future by examining how we can construct frameworks that will support respectful maternity care. By doing these, we can improve outcomes and quality of care for mothers, we improve the health of families, communities, society and our world – one woman at a time.
Reference:
Bradfield, Z., & Wilson, A. (2020, December 2). Respectful maternity care: Giving birth (in)to a Better World. O&G Magazine. Retrieved June 22, 2022, from https://www.ogmagazine.org.au/22/22-4/respectful-maternity-care/