RESPECT

Information available also in: Greek / Croatian / Italian

 

Project title: RESPECT - Toward a culture of Respectful Maternity Care (RMC): Enhancing Provider-Client Shared Decision Making and Informed Choice

Reference number: 101096681 — RESPECT — CERV-2022-DAPHNE

Project financed by: CERV-2022-DAPHNE

Project period: 1 April 2023 - 31 March 2025 (24 months) 

Project budget (approved): €425 043.59

 

 

Partners:

Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) – project lead

Birth Forward Cyprus: Birth Forward (BF)

Roda - Roditelji u akciji (Croatia)

University of Genoa (UNIGE): University of Genoa - DINOGMI (Department of Neurology, Genetics, Ophthalmology, Maternal and Infant Sciences)

 

Affiliated Partners:

The Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS)
CyFPA (OSAK)

 

Project purpose

Every birth is unique and every experience personal! But, every mother should want to tell and share her birth story with a smile!

With this project, we want to move closer to this vision by taking local action towards promoting a culture of RESPECT in maternity-child health care services according to the principles of the WHO’s framework and White Ribbon Alliance’s Charter of Rights for Respectful Maternity Care (RMC).

Even if not intentional or always recognised as such (by healthcare providers), failure to uphold the highest professional clinical and ethical standards of care may lead to a range of situations, conditions, interactions or outcomes experienced as disrespectful (by pregnant/ birthing women service-users).

Based on the RMC framework, 'disrespect' in Maternity Care does not refer (exclusively) to unacceptable situations, such as physical, sexual or verbal abuse, prejudice and discrimination, suboptimal practices, undignified behaviours or other abusive phenomena . ‘Obstetric violence’, “obstetric mistreatment” or just “mistreatment” are some of terms used in the literature to describe such unwanted phenomena. The more general term “Disrespect and Abuse” corresponds - inversely – to the above standard of quality in care, under which a range of situations, conditions and suboptimal practices that do not ensure the right to a positive birth experience are collectively gathered and classified.  

While Respectful Maternity Care is not just the converse of negative experiences,  negative experiences are common and vary. In fact, it has been suggested that, unlike low- and middle-income countries,  in high-income countries, to quote, “different subtypes [of Disrespect and Abuse] take precedence” ^[1]. More commonly mentioned are: lack of autonomy,  suboptimal or ineffective communication with healthcare providers about available care options, the medicalization of birth and unnecessary medical intervention, not respecting women’s wishes and preferences (including choice of birth partner and labour positions), and, generally, lack of support for pregnant women to make informed decisions about their own care, all of which can have a negative impact on their health, well-being and adjustment.  

Several conditions and quality standards need to be met to uphold womens’ Rights to a positive childbirth experience. A cornerstone of the RMC framework is the fundamental Right to Iinformation and Informational Support. This requires maternity-child healthcare providers and women/ service-users are working in alliance (Shared-Decision Making), jointly taking decisions regarding maternity care and childbirth and practicing  principles of informed choice.    

Taking a pragmatic approach to focus on a well-defined and amenable-to-change issue (i.e. the professional obligation of healthcare providers and right of women to present/be presented, respectively, with informed choices) holds the potential to improve standards of practice and the quality of user-provider communication which is a root cause of problematic situations, thus, a form of primary prevention of Disrespect and promotion of Respectful Maternity Care.

_{[1] Darilek U. A woman’s right to dignified, respectful healthcare during childbirth: a review of the literature on obstetric mistreatment. Issues Ment Health Nurs (2017)}

 

 

Project objectives

We would like women to be active agents in their pregnancy and childbirth experience and healthcare providers to effectively support and promote a woman-centre model of care with RESPECT.

To achieve this goal, we set a series of objectives for the RESPECT project: 

• the current situation needs to be examined from the perspective of healthcare providers and, of course, based on the experiences of women themselves (i.e. through as structured research process),
• the principles, processes and standards of care need to be set (i.e. through a participatory process in partnership with the professional community),
• the necessary skills and competences need to be cultivated (i.e. through education and training activities directed at current and future healthcare providers and future mothers), and, above all,
• this high standard of clinical practice needs to be recognized and promoted as a Right and as an obligation (i.e. through raising societal awareness on the women’s rights to a positive birth experience).

 

Project activities

Guided by principles of Participatory Action Research, the project aims to generate knowledge about the current situation, while trying in parallel to cause shift from current practices.

Thus, a series of activities have been planned accordingly: