A luta das doulas pelo reconhecimento enquanto categoria profissional: trajetória e desafios

Abstract

The history of childbirth has undergone radical transformations in modern society, such changes have affected women's lives in different areas, from the displacement of the place of birth to the proposed assistance paradigm for childbirth. In these transformations, doulas entered the obstetric scenario to respond to the demands of women who question the care model in vogue. Doulas are workers who provide physical, emotional and informational support to women in their pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period. However, despite the relevance of the work of doulas, they have found impediments to the recognition of their professionalization. In this sense, the general objective of the research was to analyze, through a literature review and documentary research, the trajectory of the professionalization of doulas in Brazil. Therefore, the writing of this dissertation focused on the changes in childbirth from modern society; the meaning of the professionalization of doulas, and the trajectory of their organization until their professionalization process. Among the main conclusions, it is highlighted that considering a category of female workers as a profession involves a power struggle marked by accreditation measures, permeated by ideologies, which designate what a profession is or is not. Doulas, for example, have been suffering from the medicalization paradigm that prioritizes, even in public policies, medical and medicalizing control technologies, leaving the possibilities of humanizing childbirth and the participation of other professionals in a secondary place. Still in this direction, it is worth highlighting the findings regarding volunteering as a place that needs to be questioned for the advancement of the struggles of doulas in the recognition of their work as a profession, in addition to the training policy itself, which needs to have a workload compatible with a vocational training course. It should also be noted that this work is the first investigation carried out on the subject in the Graduate Program in Social Work at the Federal University of Paraíba.