Sociología del parto. Conflictos asistenciales en el marco del "paradigma tecnocrático’”

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore, from the point of view of the women who have just given birth, possible conflicts between maternal needs and medical routines typical from interventionist hospital births. The chosen methodology has been a set of semi-structured interviews, and the result shows principally three types of relief aid: the asymmetrical interaction, technological subordination and the acceptance of “institutional-abused” praxis. The final conclusion is that we have a medicalized ritual influenced by passive obedience experiences, where the fear creates distrust, while the women wishes are moulded by the expert’s. This fact is assumed by the women who have just given birth as inevitable, and they even demand it, as a result of the safety given by the biotechnological control, and once they have assumed the clinical discourses which present the childbirth as a pathological and risk process.