What are my rights?

 

Pregnant women have the same rights to bodily autonomy and informed decision making as any other person.  Babies don't have their own rights until they are born alive.  So, the decisions for the baby are to be made by the mother. 

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Your rights in health care include:

• freedom from harm and ill-treatment

• access to information, informed consent and respect for your choices

• equality, freedom from discrimination

• access to healthcare and the highest attainable level of health

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Read more on your rights to:

• respectful maternity care and

• informed consent

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How do things go wrong?

Pregnancy, birth and postpartum are highly complex periods in a woman's life, with many moving parts that she can't always control. However, one thing she should be able to rely on is the unconditional support of her maternity care team.

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In the complexity of our medico-legal maternity care system, protection of a mother's rights to informed decision making and bodily autonomy can be forgotten in favour of hospital policies and practices.  While policies and practices are helpful for ensuring the running of the service, they aren't always in the best interests of individual women and their babies.

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And it is too rarely understood is that no one is more physically and emotionally invested in a baby's safe arrival than the mother.  No one else is literally risking their future health prospects to ensure the best outcome for the baby.

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As a result, some women reluctantly undergo treatments or procedures that they do not want or feel unsure about.  Sadly, they can live to regret this.  Some women are overtly bullied into certain procedures. Other women still may be seeking care options that are withheld from them, leading to outcomes they didn't want either.

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These scenarios are examples of obstetric violence, which are never the way maternity care should be delivered.  We all have the right to informed decision making and evidence based care.

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The UN's Human Rights Office of the High Commission describes obstetric violence as including:

"outright physical abuse, profound humiliation and verbal abuse, coercive or unconsented medical procedures (including sterilization), lack of confidentiality, failure to get fully informed consent, refusal to give pain medication, gross violations of privacy, refusal of admission to health facilities, neglecting women during childbirth to suffer life-threatening, avoidable complications, and detention of women and their newborns in facilities after childbirth due to an inability to pay."

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What can I do about it?

Fortunately there are ways to address your concerns.  You can:

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• complain so you can:

  • get the care you want (if you're pregnant), or

  • have the opportunity to have the system changed so that what you experienced doesn't happen again (after birth), or

• pursue legal action if you believe you have suffered medical negligence from treatment you have received.​