From rituals to herbs: reviewing the work of midwifery

Abstract

It is a bibliographical research which has the objective of problematizing the institutionalization and medicalization of childbirth, recognizing and valuing other health practices, such as the work of traditional midwives produced from non formal processes, in an empirical, corporal and natural way. The discussion exposes the influence that medicine exerts in all aspects of people lives, its need for standardization, control and hygiene, once these factors favored the appropriation of the work of midwifery, which being complimented with the concept that Foucault named biopolitics, strengthens the medical hegemony that has been consolidated in a predominantly male way and how the effect of the heteronomy caused by this model contributed to the withdrawal of female protagonism.