“Beautiful Registrations”: Metrics and Prenatal Care in Rural Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Brazil, lack of quality in the delivery of prenatal care is a persistent concern. In this study, I analyze the dynamics taking place in the prenatal clinical encounter, and illuminate how the requirement to produce metrics through registration and monitoring endorses a form of bureaucratic care. This form of care develops in a context characterized by scarcity and a lack of medical resources, where healthcare professionals attempt to contain uncertainty. Ruled by notions of risk, centered in measuring practices, and saturated by an overvaluation of technology, bureaucratic care reinforces the disenfranchizement and stigmatization of Black rural women.