Report No. 2. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the presence during labor and childbirth of an accompanying person chosen by the woman

Abstract

In March 2020, the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 created an international health and care crisis. In Catalonia, as in many other places in Spain, Europe and the world, health services were overwhelmed not only to respond to the ravages caused by the new disease but also to address other situations, such as care of women during pregnancy, labor and childbirth, and postpartum. In this context, the measures adopted in the health services to face the emergency scenario caused important alterations in the processes of maternity care as they had been carried out up to that moment. One of the manifestations of these changes was the introduction of restrictions in many countries on the presence during labor and childbirth of an accompanying person chosen by the woman (Horsch, Lalor, & Downe, 2020; Mollard & Wittmaack, 2021; Stephens, Barton, Bentum, Blackwell, & Sibai, 2020). In some parts of Catalonia and Spain, this occurred even though both the Spanish Ministry of Health (2020) and the Catalan Department of Health (2020) established that, given the necessary protective measures were adopted, there was no reason to restrict the accompanying person's access to labor and childbirth. In fact, since the beginning of the pandemic, numerous professional recommendations were published defending the preservation of the sexual and reproductive rights of pregnant women (International Confederation of Midwives 2020) and recalling that even in crisis contexts such as the one experienced from March 2020, all women have the right to a safe and positive labor and childbirth experience (FAME 2020). Faced with this situation, numerous voices were raised denouncing that the sexual and reproductive rights of women during pregnancy, labor and childbirth, and/or postpartum were being subordinated to the demands of the management of the pandemic and, on some occasions, violated (Mujer Luz, 2021; El Parto es Nuestro, 2020; Vivas, 2020). As a result, responses were organized from civil society (El Parto es Nuestro, 2021) and professional fields (Pastor, 2020). Based on the interest in understanding the extent and the way in which health care for women was affected at such a fundamental moment in their lives, from the Inclusive Societies, Policies and Communities research group (SoPCI) and the UNESCO Chair Women, Development and Cultures of the Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya we promoted the research project Sexual and reproductive rights in pandemic times: maternity and COVID-19 in Catalonia. The project initially received funding from the Ministry of Equality (Secretary of State for Equality and against Gender Violence/State Pact against Gender Violence). Subsequently, it has also received support from the Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Department of Enterprise and Knowledge of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR0657). The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya. Beyond the publications and other scientific results derived from the project, from the research team we consider that the data generated are of great relevance to, firstly, make visible situations, not always positive, that thousands of women in Catalonia had to live at a time in their lives of maximum vulnerability and need for care and support. On the other hand, it also seems important to us to publish the main results of the research in this brief report format to make them accessible to different audiences.