Mistreatment in childbirth a healthcare issue: Study

A SPECIAL supplement from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and human reproductive programme (HRP), newly published in BMJ Global Health, spotlights how women and their newborn babies are treated during childbirth and offers a path to improved facility-based care.
The WHO and HRP in a joint statement said more evidence showed that women across the world faced unacceptable mistreatment during childbirth.
It said women everywhere faced violations of their rights – including rights to privacy, informed consent and the right to have a trusted companion of choice throughout childbirth.
It said mistreatment could erode trust in the health facility, which could mean that women were less likely to access facility-based care before, during and after birth.
This could have grave consequences for the health and well-being of women and their babies and could even put their lives at risk.
As Özge Tunçalp, medical officer at the WHO and the HRP explained: “Improving the experience of women throughout labour and childbirth is essential to help increase women’s trust in facility-based care – as well as ensuring access to quality postnatal care following birth.”
The WHO and HRP said more research – and research capacity – was urgently needed to better understand and improve women’s experiences of mistreatment during childbirth but also across the continuum maternity care.
This included research on novel methods of collecting data, understanding how experiences vary depending on context and how these experiences impact overall outcomes.
In recognition of this gap, the new supplement presented evidence from a WHO multi-country study on the positive impact of labour companions, the need for increased privacy measures and improved ways to measure the experiences and satisfaction women had when giving birth at any given health care facility.
Within the collection, the analysis on labour companionship showed women without a companion were more likely to report physical abuse.

– WHO