“Na porta mesmo já me deu vontade de chorar”: a violência obstétrica vivenciada por mulheres que pariram sozinhas na pandemia

Abstract

Obstetric violence is a form of gender violence, conceptualized as an act of violating the physical and psychological integrity of pregnant women, during prenatal, childbirth and postpartum care and in abortion situations. Characterized by the appropriation of women's reproductive processes by medical and health teams, it stems from both the perpetuation, in the management of labor, of obstetric practices considered harmful, as well as factors related to discrimination by gender, race and social class. Feminist social movements were responsible for the recognition of women as subjects of human rights, especially reproductive rights. Allied with the movements for the humanization of childbirth, they denounced violent practices during childbirth and influenced the approval, in Brazil, of the law that ensures the presence of a companion of the woman's free choice during labor, delivery and the postpartum period, and municipal and state laws throughout the country, which govern practices that characterize obstetric violence. Tocantins is among the states that have a law of this nature. The law recognizes in the impediment of the presence of a companion one of the violating practices. However, with the Covid-19 pandemic, this right was suppressed in public maternity hospitals in Tocantins for more than eighteen months. In view of this scenario, the general object of this work is to investigate whether the responses of the Tocantins Judiciary to the demands filed by the Public Defender's Office, to comply with the companion law during the Covid-19 pandemic, recognize the suppression of this right as violence. obstetric service and verify, through interviews, whether the women who made these demands experienced other violations. Using a qualitative approach, this research has three dimensions: it contextualizes the recognition of women's human rights in the international and Brazilian scenarios; presents, from a theoretical contribution from feminist studies, the issue of obstetric violence as gender violence, intersected by race and class; examines, based on the methodology of analysis of judicial decisions, the deliberations made in the investigated procedural demands and, based on the methodology of analysis of the situated phenomenon, the descriptions formulated by the women authors of such actions in narrative interviews. The study makes it possible to understand that the legal discourse present in judicial deliberations, does not recognize obstetric violence resulting from the impediment of a companion, aligns with the state measure taken in the course of the pandemic, and not part of a judgment with a gender perspective. It is also noted that the women interviewed were subjected to different forms of violence, such as physical violations, non-consensual interventions, unworthy care, verbal abuse, lack of quality in the care received, in addition to the perception of a negative childbirth experience and a sense of of injustice resulting from the violation of rights. It is also understood that because it is a structural problem resulting from different axes of oppression, obstetric violence must be seen from a lens that allows intersectional responses to the issue.