Becoming a mother is said to be the most blissful moment in a woman’s life, but for many the actual experience of delivering a child is often traumatic. ‘Obstetric violence’, as it is called, includes practices such as ‘forcing the woman to give birth in a supine position, with legs raised’, ‘performing delivery via caesarean section, when natural childbirth is possible’, ‘impeding the early attachment of the child with his/her mother’, many of which are routinely followed in India.
Determined to bring about a positive change in this area is an NGO, White Ribbon Alliance (WRA), with its Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) campaign. Initiated a year ago, WRA brought on board 80 private and public institutes across India to sign a seven-point charter of ‘Universal Rights of Childbearing Women’. It has now associated with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on a two-year study to be done at some of its centres on ways to incorporate RMC into service delivery, confirmed a senior ICMR official.
WRA has also associated with the Trained Nurses Association of India (TNAI) on ways to reinforce the message of respectful care among its 10 lakh nurse members across India. Starting April, TNAI has begun publishing one page on RMC in its monthly bulletin. Besides, a chapter on RMC is being added in the nursing curriculum, says Evelyn P Kannan, TNAI secretary-general.
In the course of its work with pregnant women, WRA found that “being treated with respect” was the biggest ask. WRA’s charter of rights includes the right to “information”, “respect for choices; “be treated with dignity”. It’s still mostly a symbolic gesture with the signee clinics agreeing to put up the RMC charter of rights on their walls. But what might have greater effect on the ground is the work WRA is doing with TNAI and ICMR.
“Most often, health providers don’t even realise that their behaviour constitutes disrespect or indignity,” says Gogoi.
Term talk
1. Obstetric violence was formulated in Venezuela in 2007. It includes censured practices such as:
2. Forcing the woman to give birth in a supine position, with legs raised
3. Performing delivery via cesarean section, when natural childbirth is possible
4. Impeding attachment of the child with the mother by blocking the possibility of nursing, etc
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