Background: Midwives look after women during pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium. In Spain, the first wave of COVID was particularly virulent. There are few studies about the experiences of midwives providing care during the COVID pandemic and very few have been undertaken in the countries of southern Europe such as Spain. This article sets out to take a more in-depth look at the experiences of midwives who were on the frontline of care during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to identify new needs and resilience strategies that can help midwives. Methods: A qualitative methodology of phenomenological tradition was used, interviewing 10 midwives from primary care, hospital and independent care. Results: After content analysis, three central categories emerged: (a) cascade of emotions; (b) professional occupation and concern for the women; (c) resisting the day-to-day; resilience and resistance strategies. Conclusions: Despite the difficulties, midwives are concerned about the loss of rights and autonomy and about the increased vulnerability of women. Midwives have become aware of the power they have in their actions both in health management and administration, as well as in the care of women, creating strategies to provide dignified care to their users.
El artículo tiene por objetivo problematizar la situación de las mujeres con discapacidad en el Estado de Chile, visibilizando la ausencia de la perspectiva de género en las políticas públicas sobre la discapacidad, lo cual sostiene el problema y sus representaciones históricas dominantes. Como contraparte, emerge el activismo y la agencia de las mujeres con discapacidad subvirtiendo esta situación de precariedad y avanzando en la incidencia pública nacional.
Background Birth cultures have been transforming in recent years mainly affecting birth care and its socio-political contexts. This situation has affected the feeling of well-being in women at the time of giving birth. Aim For this reason, our objective was to analyse the social meaning that women ascribe to home births in the Chilean context. Method We conducted thirty semi-structured interviews with women living in diverse regions ranging from northern to southern Chile, which we carried out from a theoretical-methodological perspective of phenomenology and situated knowledge. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyse the information collected in the field work. Findings A qualitative thematic analysis produced the following main theme: 1) Home birth journeys. Two sub-categories: 1.1) Making the decision to give birth at home, 1.2) Giving birth: (re)birth. And four sub-categories also emerged: 1.1.1) Why do I need to give birth at home? 1.1.2) The people around me don’t support me; 1.2.1) Shifting emotions during home birth, 1.2.2) I (don’t) want to be alone. Conclusion We concluded that home births involve an intense and diverse range of satisfactions and tensions, the latter basically owing to the sociocultural resistance surrounding women. For this reason, they experienced home birth as an act of protest and highly valued the presence of midwives and their partners.
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