DOULAS IN OBSTETRIC CARE: A REVIEW ON THE LEGISLATION AND STATUTE OF THE FEDERATION OF DOULAS IN BRAZIL

ABSTRACT

The migration of births from the home environment to the hospital resulted in transformations in the act of giving birth, ceasing to be a physiological event specific to women, to transforming it into a medical act full of interventions that can cause iatrogenesis, in addition to an increase in costs to health-care systems. In this context, the figure of the doula emerges, an active health professional in the movements for the humanization of childbirth, who seeks physical and emotional support for women during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium. Doulas function as an active part of this transformation and are fundamental to reducing the cesarean section epidemic, as well as to the fight for women's reproductive health. Although the profession has been recognized for a long time around the world, in Brazil, it was only in March 2022 that the laws regulating the profession were approved at the Federal level. The approval was the result of the union of professionals who began to organize themselves into State Federations and, later, created the National Federation of Doulas of Brazil, the organization responsible for the Statute of the Profession. This article discusses the changes that have occurred in obstetrics over recent history.