Interpretações, práticas e disputas a respeito do parto e nascimento: uma análise sobre a cultura da humanização do parto em mídias sociais

Abstract

This research aims to investigate how activists, professionals and supporters of humanizing delivery propagate ideals of this movement in social media, promoting and forging a new culture of childbirth. I take as object social media, websites and profiles on the social network Instagram of the following groups connected to the movement for the delivery humanization: Adoulasrj – Association of doulas of Rio de Janeiro; Coletiva Mãe na Roda; Makota Terapia Ancestral; Grupo Ilê Materno; Ishtar (peripheral centers); and the page “O renascimento”. The methodology used was based on bibliographic research; documentary research; and netnographic research, analyzing social media of groups of supporters of the movement for the delivery humanization, and presenting online journalistic reports with coverage of the brazilian obstetric scenario as a complement. The research includes observation of the 5th National Doulas Convention in 2019. The theoretical framework that guides this research are studies of the Anthropology of the Body and Health, as well as research in the area of collective health about assistance and obstetric violence. An analysis and historical-cultural path of formation of brazilian obstetric care is presented, highlighting the context of hospitalization and medicalization of childbirth; the movements of resistance to this medicalization; and the current scenario of brazilian obstetric care, focusing on the movement for the delivery humanization and the problem of obstetric violence. Then, an analysis is made of the findings of netnographic research in social media of activists, supporters and professionals of humanizing delevery. This study caracterizes the craft of doulas and their performance as mediators of the pedagogy of humanizing delivery; the discourses collected on the page "O Renascimento" on the social network Instagram are analyzed; and the performance of doulas’ collectives that organize themselves from a peripheral and afro-centered “doulaing” perspective is described. As a result, it was found that the obstetric field is characterized by a scenario of tension and disputes between the professional categories that form it and the ideals, practices and discourses that they mobilize. Besides, some women with limited access to established knowledge about their bodies, have mobilized in order to reverse this situation of domination, seeking to recover the protagonism in choosing the type of obstetric care they want. These conflicts, as well as the fusion or separation of discourses for a more “natural” birth and to combat obstetric violence, are guided by sociocultural values and power hierarchies, such as racial and social class relations. In addition, it was observed how in the virtual field an attempt is made to build a space for sociability among a public, mostly made up, of women who will be guided by conceptions that are the basis of humanizing delivery ideals. Doulas figure in this context as a device of humanizing delivery pedagogy, mediating access to knowledge and health practices, and adapting them to the audience they want to reach. In this space, the knowledge and practices that form the pedagogy of humanizing delivery are established in a kind of negotiation between tradition and science, and conceptions of nature and culture.