Care-giving During Childbirth: From Individual to Collective Responsibility

The presentation poses a reflection about caregiving during childbirth in biomedical institutions, which arises from childbirth narratives of around 9000 Chilean women.
From evidence-based activism, women’s lived experiences appear as a fundamental source of knowledge that can dialogue with biomedical knowledge and thus enable the emergence of new forms of collective reflexivity.
Within the great diversity of childbirth experiences, there is a generalized perception that there is no guarantee of receiving comprehensive and respectful care, and that access to such care is the responsibility of women themselves, in self-managed decision-making processes.
This logic centered on a fragmented view of the human being and based on personal choices (the logic of choice) is opposed to an ethic of care understood in the holistic term of collective responsibility, dependent on solidarity and collaboration networks (logic of care).

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SPEAKER
NAME: PROF MICHELLE SADLER, PHD
AFFILIATION: 1. OBSERVATORIO DE VIOLENCIA OBSTÉTRICA (CHILEAN OBSERVATORY OF OBSTETRIC VIOLENCE), CHILE; 2. FACULTAD DE ARTES LIBERALES, UNIVERSIDAD ADOLFO IBÁÑEZ, CHILE; 3. WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES PROGRAM, UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA, ISRAEL
Michelle Sadler is a Chilean medical anthropologist. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and Communication from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain; a MSc in Medical Anthropology from the University of Oxford; and a Master´s degree in Gender Studies from the University of Chile. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Women’s and Gender studies program from the University of Haifa, Israel; and an adjunct researcher at the Faculty of Liberal Arts Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile. She is Director of the Chilean Observatory of Obstetric Violence (OVO Chile), founding member of the Chilean Society of Childbirth (SOCHIPAR), and member of the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) at Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.
She is one of the founding members of RELACAHUPAN, the Latin American and Caribbean network for the Humanization of Childbirth, which was founded in the year 2000.
She has 20 years of experience researching sexual and reproductive health from a qualitative approach, especially childbirth models of care and the processes of implementation of humanized models.
Michelle is mother of two girls, which were born in environments of profound respect and compassionate care. She carries the embodiedlived experience of giving birth surrounded by a loving environment, and works passionately so that more women, babies and families can live such experiences.