“As Natural as Possible”: Narratives of Primary Health Care and Hospital Midwives in the Humanized Birth Paradigm

Abstract

Introduction. Humanized childbirth movements were fully developed in 1980s as criticism towards biomedical practice in reproductive processes. “Nature” and “natural” are important concepts within the mentioned paradigm. Women’s biological abilities to give birth without biomedical interference are emphasized and we can see ecofeminist influences on it. Aims. To explore interviewed midwives’ perceptions about the humanized childbirth paradigm and nature. Material/Methods. The methodology is an ethnographic qualitative research design. Eight midwives who work in primary and hospital care settings in Barcelona were interviewed. Results. Informants consider “nature” in childbirth as a range with two extremes: interventionism with negative implications and naturalism related to positive elements. On the other hand, the Cartesian mind/body dichotomy is reversed: the mind is associated with biomedicine and therefore with negative elements while the body must take control. Conclusions. Following the precepts of the humanized childbirth paradigm, all informants take nature as a guide in reproductive processes. However, some of them are more closely aligned with biomedical interventionism while others feel that these processes shouldn’t be manipulated.