Although many people believe that births should always be attended by a gynecologist, the reality is that normal deliveries (those in which the physiological process occurs naturally) should be attended by midwives, because it has been seen that decreases the probability of premature delivery and instrumentalization, by reducing the use of epidural anesthesia, episiotomies and forceps or suction cup.
In addition, it is known that the environment in which women give birth has a lot to do with their confidence and tranquility, which are important to the point of tilting the scale towards a dilation and expulsion without needing any help, or tilting it towards a dilation that stops or even goes less, complicating childbirth until requiring instrumentalization that can lead to greater problems for the mother and the baby.
Precisely for this reason, in Catalonia they have finally decided to take a step forward and return to the midwives the autonomy of care for low-risk delivery that should never have been taken away, and in an enabling environment, creating 7 delivery houses managed by themselves.
The first birth house will open this year
As we read in La Sexta, the Sant Joan de Déu de Martorell Hospital will be the first to open a delivery house outside the obstetrics block of the same hospital, which as we have said will be managed only by midwives. According to forecasts, the inauguration of this delivery house will take place in the fourth quarter of this year.
Thus, it will become the first public hospital in Catalonia that has a similar attention to that offered by other hospitals in other countries, which reminds us of that of the English NHS, where birth care in midwifery units is very common.
To reach the deadline, the works are going to start right now, and have as a forecast that they will get to attend to about 100 women every year, in an area of 50 square meters divided into two rooms: a larger one with a bathtub, about 30 square meters, and a slightly smaller one, 20 meters.
Six more birthing houses, coming soon
The project to create seven delivery houses, which should be different depending on the amount of population that will be attended (some will be larger than others, most likely), is part of the 2016-2020 Generalitat Health Plan, in who decided that the delivery care should be updated with the evidence that shows that an excess of interventionism can be harmful for both the woman and the baby.
The remaining six delivery houses will be created at Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital, Vall d'Hebron Hospital, L'Hospitalet Hospital, Sant Pau, Igualada and Joan XIII de Tarragona.
Although this will make much progress in childbirth care, many hospitals will remain without this type of care. The Generalitat, in any case, believes that in the not too distant future All Catalan women can give birth in a delivery house if they wish.
And the figures speak for themselves. In 2015, 35,638 deliveries occurred in Catalonia. Of all of them, 71% were vaginal and 29% remaining by caesarean section. If we take into account that WHO recommends that the number of cesarean deliveries does not exceed 10-15%, it is clear that there are many births that could go better with different attention.
In addition, in 22.9% of cases, an episiotomy was performed on women, a much better figure than years ago, when practically all women were done by system, but still higher than the rates of other countries, They do not reach 10%.
So as a resident in Catalonia, I can only be glad to see that after so many years, after so much asking for a more respectful delivery for women and babies (and I do not mean me, but all women and all the groups that have been fighting for so long), the results begin to be seen.
