Rispettare il processo. Il ruolo sociale, culturale e politico delle ostetriche libere professioniste in Italia e in Spagna

In this article the author focus on the role of the independent midwives in Italy and Spain, where she conducted her fieldwork between 2010 and 2015. Emerging data show that in these contexts – where the medicalisation of childbirth dominates – independent midwives are today the keepers of the physiology and of the female knowledge relating to birth. A central concept is “respect”; around this concept orbits the midwives’ vision of the process and all the practices that are deployed during the caring process. To beand to dooutside the widespread system allow independent midwives to critically examine the assumptions and paradigms of scientific medicine, but also wider social processes. In this sense, a social, a cultural and a political role of the independent midwives was highlighted.