Photo from street protest in Rio de Janeiro (from Globo journal)
In July, Orgasmic Birth posted about the situation in Brazil: " The Medical Council of Rio de Janeiro prohibits the participation of midwives and doulas in hospital birth, prohibits doctors to take part in referral systems to homebirth mothers, and causes national outrage." Today, we are very grateful to Gabriela Azcoaga Klett for sending us updates and photos that illustrate the movement in Brazil & Argentina.
Submitted by Gabriela Azcoaga Klett, Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 2012
"We are neighbor countries, as we have shared much kind of realities, now we are both countries with the same attack to home birthing. A new midwives law in Argentina and a new regulation in the medical counseling of Brazil are prohibiting the professional assistance when a couple decides to have their baby at home. Not that our hospitals are an example of efficiency and good care. Very much on the contrary, we have overpopulated hospitals with poor resources, many times not enough people to attend the patients, sometimes you get to the hospital and there is no one at all!
At the same time groups from northeast of Brazil are trying to give the midwives knowledge the status of cultural patrimony of Brazil, because traditional midwife is still the only one to give attention and support to birth in rural areas. People manifest against these laws in the streets, signs have been collected for public petitions, but authorities from government and medical institutions seem to not pay attention to what is really healthy, demonstrated by statistics and enormous amounts of birth tales from who has passed through this marvelous experience of having a baby in the most familiar and cozy place, with the loving and good caring of midwives and relatives.
Are they really concerned with health? Not only individual health but society health itself. Can anyone in a public charge ignore the violence many women experience in hospitals at the delicate moment of giving birth? And the more or less a traumatic experience will determinate the way a woman feels about motherhood, and the commitment she can afford to take care of her child?"
Photo taken in September from one of the first protest in Argentina, a protest on the words "I choose where and how to give birth" (yo elijo como y donde parir) www.mujerquelucha.blogspot.com (Sept. 3rd post)
To read more background on the movement, please visit Orgasmic Birth's July 25th post and to view more photos read the September 3rd post on Mujer BoniTa es La qUe LuCha.
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