Human Rights & Consent In Childbirth

​While we get caught up with the little details of our children’s birth, it’s easy to lose track of the fundamentals and the industry’s standards of care.Even with the privilege we have to live among advanced technology in prenatal care and childbirth, many women are receiving substandard care for their families.
This substandard or low quality care is a fundamental human rights concern and is worthy of attention in the childbirth community. Poor, working class, minority, or marginalized peoples receive no care or insufficient care in maternity settings all too often and it creates a growing problem in our communities.
Prenatal and Birth PTSD is an unfortunate reality that affects real mothers.Negative birth experiences and violations of consent are creating unnecessary health risks for mothers and their children. These injustices occur when obstetric standards aren’t being met in certain areas.Many health care providers and industry professionals are setting out to change these statistics, decreasing infant mortality rates and increasing the quality of care that all women can expect for their baby’s delivery.
It is the human right for every woman to have access to the resources and healthcare support she needs for a healthy birth, leaving mothers as the empowered decision maker in her own birth experience.Human Rights in Childbirth is an organization that aims for progress in these areas, paving the way for big changes in the ethical standards of Childbirth in the United States and Internationally. Our team of birth professionals support these efforts as we implement judgement free philosophies for every family in our birthing center. We proudly support their organization and encourage other families to help make real changes for women and their children.
Our standard of birth support reflects the dedication of our team to providing exceptional care for every family. Decisions and plans for birth are the exclusive right of parents and we strive to offer families every resource at our disposal to create the safest and most comfortable environment possible to welcome their new baby.
We encourage every family to understand their rights surrounding childbirth and some of the ways these rights can be compromised.“A person does not lose their fundamental human rights when they become pregnant. Every human being, regardless of their pregnancy status, has the following rights:”

• Right to Informed Consent
• Right to Refuse Medical Treatment
• Right to Health
• Right to Equal Treatment
• Right to Privacy
• Right to Life

The Human Rights in Childbirth Association identifies ways that consent can be compromised and fundamental human rights are violated every day around the world.VIOLATIONS TAKE ON MANY FORMS:

• Physical abuse includes things like non-consented force, restraint, unnecessary procedures including episiotomy, and failure to provide pain relief.
• Disrespect involves things like verbal abuse, bullying, blaming, humiliation, reprimands, and ‘shroud-waving.’
• Non-confidential care holds little regard for unauthorized revelation of personal details, physical exposure, and lack of respect for religious or personal modesty.
• Non-consented care might mean that procedures were performed without adequate information or dialogue to enable autonomous decision-making, or that there was undue pressure to make specific clinical choices.
• Misinformed care involves biased, non-transparent clinical information, disabling women from giving true informed consent.
• Depersonalized care means there was an inflexible application of institutional policy, and / or failure to take into account women’s individual circumstances, including around companionship of choice.
• Discriminatory care is unequal treatment based on personal attributes such as age, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and disability.
• Abandonment of care includes refusal to provide care due to inability to pay or birth choices outside of expected guidelines.

Every opportunity to educate families on their rights in childbirth is progress and a step toward a brighter future.
​If you have questions about your child’s birth or how you can support organizations like Human Rights in Childbirth, contact us.
As we stand together and implement a nurturing birth experience that is rich in resources, we can steadily raise industry standards, improving the quality of life for all women and their babies.