Consented violence: women in labor and delivery

Abstract

Delivery is an event that is part of the reproductive experience of a woman and her partner. Health professionals play an important role in that experience by putting their knowledge in the service of the woman's and her baby's welfare and helping them in the childbirth process in a healthy as well as humanized manner. The present study is a section of the doctoral dissertation of one of the authors and the objective was to reveal how assistance is provided at some health institutions. Several circumstances to which the woman in labor is subject are characterized by actions that were considered as non-care and/or dehumanization. This section of the dissertation shows a special type of gender violence in the health area, a consented violence, according to the authors' opinion, which occurs with women in labor and delivery.