The Generalitat de Catalunya will sign an agreement with the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs in order to extend natural care to normal delivery in hospitals that depend on the Department of Health and humanize the process of childbirth and encourage breastfeeding.
The objective is to ensure a quality of care based on respect for women, promoting their active participation, humanizing normal childbirth and helping to establish the emotional bonds between the baby and his mother.
The agreement also contemplates the evaluation of the results of hospitals that perform natural assistance to normal delivery to know the degree of acceptance and satisfaction of women as well as the type of care provided in pregnancy, delivery and postpartum. To promote the use of more respectful protocols, the physical spaces of the hospitals and the human resources of the following hospitals will be adapted: the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Santa Caterina de Salt, Santa Creu and Sant Pau de Barcelona, Puigcerdà, Mataró, General de Vic, Sabadell, Sant Jaume d'Olot, Hospitalari Center of Manresa and Hospital del Vendrell. Soon the hospitals of Terres de l'Ebre and Lleida will be incorporated.
In these centers, pregnant women will be offered without risk factor the possibility of receiving childbirth care with the minimum possible intervention, without medicalizing but with the guarantee of availability of maternal and fetal surveillance To avoid possible risks.
The agreement develops the recommendations established in the Strategy for the Normal Delivery of the National Health System.
To have some data in this regard, last year in Catalonia 1,386 women chose non-medicalized care to have their children in the 10 pilot hospitals for natural assistance to normal delivery. Of these, 82 percent were finally able to receive this type of care. In 2006, 600 did.
It is clear that for a while this is the trend and is the purpose. Relying on women, their bodies, mother nature and respect the wishes and decisions of the motherMain affected.
Two decades ago England was the same as Spain now, at the height of medicalization. Little by little they realized that it was not the way to go and now I miss it there (and in other Nordic countries) is to medicalize a birth. Here we are beginning to make that change and I am glad for all future moms, for future parents and for future newborns.
