BIRTH CENTERS: IT’S IMPORTANCE IN THE HUMANIZATION OF DELIVERY AND BIRTH ASSISTANCE

Abstract

SUMMARY: This article presents reflections about the importance of care in obstetrics, above all about the infuence of Birth Centers on the way of whole and humanizing assistance for their clients. It aims to discuss the importance of Birth Centers to render concrete a humanizing assitance for the parturient. It points out the deficiency of the actual health assistance system to the parturient that still is caracterized by conceptions of the biomedical model besides conducts that, many times, exposes the client to situations of disrespect and exclusion. It proposes nursing assistance based on pillars such as scientific and technical knowledge and skills in the relations between the person and the self and with the others, honoring health care as a guideline of professionals’ conducts. The need to search for a humanizing assistance to women in puerperal-pregnancy cycle is emphasized, transforming them in the protagonist of the event that involves full obstetrics and neonatal assitance, using means like a healthy communication process. Two categories of analysis were defined: Birth Centers and Humanization; Care in Birth Process. It was concluded that Birth Centers presents a proper option that provides a humanizing assitance for the parturient and her family and that its concretization depends on the modification of the posture of health professionals. KEYWORDS: Humanizing Delivery, Obstetrical Nursing, Birthing Centers