When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the World Health Organization (WHO), in its first recommendations, reminded the international obstetric care that women are entitled to a satisfactory and positive childbirth experience, whether they are infected or not. According to the WHO, a satisfactory childbirth experience includes a decent and respectful treatment, the right to be in accompanied by the person that they have chosen and the right to palliative strategies to mitigate pain during the delivery. 

Sara Jort, a health psychologist and a gestalt psychotherapist, as she explains in her video for the Equality Unit, condemns the current failure to comply with these premises in many hospitals and the loss of women's rights in terms of reproductive health during the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sara is an external tutor at the Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of the Universitat de València and a member of the GIDOPT Research Team of the same department. She is a seasoned professional in the area of Perinatal Psychology and she primarily deals with difficulties with conception, depression and/or anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum, the postnatal trauma, grief counseling because of death in the gestation or perinatal period and difficulties in adapting to motherhood/fatherhood, as well as with emotional accompaniment during puerperium, the early parenting period. 

"Obstetric violence is increasing all over Spain. This is clearly showed in the use of unnecessary instruments in the vaginal delivery, Caesarean sections and labor inductions without medical reason, the separation of mothers from babies required by protocol and in women who are giving birth alone without the person they have chosen to be with them", Sara Jort explains. 

The psychologist Sara Jort proves that the beginning or continuation of breastfeeding by women that want to suckle their children is not facilitated either. This means the failure to comply with Valencian Community's Law for Health 8/2018, dated 20 April, of the Valencian government, amending Law 10/2014, dated 29 December.

It is therefore predicted that we will have to fight again to have updated protocols for pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and puerperium care according to the criteria of international organizations. 

"Despite the fact that in our community we have managed to give birth accompanied by the person we have chosen, we will have to continue fighting to maintain our rights in all tests and actions that are carried out during pregnancy, including miscarriage and perinatal death, planned or urgent Cesarean section and all the postpartum actions as it is stated in our Healthcare Law 2018", Sara Jort forecasts.