Background: Midwives look after women during pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium. In Spain, the first wave of COVID was particularly virulent. There are few studies about the experiences of midwives providing care during the COVID pandemic and very few have been undertaken in the countries of southern Europe such as Spain. This article sets out to take a more in-depth look at the experiences of midwives who were on the frontline of care during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to identify new needs and resilience strategies that can help midwives. Methods: A qualitative methodology of phenomenological tradition was used, interviewing 10 midwives from primary care, hospital and independent care. Results: After content analysis, three central categories emerged: (a) cascade of emotions; (b) professional occupation and concern for the women; (c) resisting the day-to-day; resilience and resistance strategies. Conclusions: Despite the difficulties, midwives are concerned about the loss of rights and autonomy and about the increased vulnerability of women. Midwives have become aware of the power they have in their actions both in health management and administration, as well as in the care of women, creating strategies to provide dignified care to their users.

El artículo tiene por objetivo problematizar la situación de las mujeres con discapacidad en el Estado de Chile, visibilizando la ausencia de la perspectiva de género en las políticas públicas sobre la discapacidad, lo cual sostiene el problema y sus representaciones históricas dominantes. Como contraparte, emerge el activismo y la agencia de las mujeres con discapacidad subvirtiendo esta situación de precariedad y avanzando en la incidencia pública nacional.

Background: Birth cultures have been transforming in recent years mainly affecting birth care and its socio-political contexts. This situation has affected the feeling of well-being in women at the time of giving birth. Aim: For this reason, our objective was to analyse the social meaning that women ascribe to home births in the Chilean context. Method: We conducted thirty semi-structured interviews with women living in diverse regions ranging from northern to southern Chile, which we carried out from a theoretical-methodological perspective of phenomenology and situated knowledge. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyse the information collected in the field work. Findings: A qualitative thematic analysis produced the following main theme: 1) Home birth journeys. Two sub-categories: 1.1) Making the decision to give birth at home, 1.2) Giving birth: (re)birth. And four sub-categories also emerged: 1.1.1) Why do I need to give birth at home? 1.1.2) The people around me don’t support me; 1.2.1) Shifting emotions during home birth, 1.2.2) I (don’t) want to be alone. Conclusion: We concluded that home births involve an intense and diverse range of satisfactions and tensions, the latter basically owing to the sociocultural resistance surrounding women. For this reason, they experienced home birth as an act of protest and highly valued the presence of midwives and their partners.

Background: Since the 1960s, the Independent Life Movement has demanded personal assistance as a right for people with disabilities to access autonomy. In turn, feminist movements have shown a special concern for the care and profile of the providers. Both postures have created tensions around the provision of personal assistance and care for people with disabilities. Aim: To know and analyze the scientific evidence regarding approaches to personal assistance and care for people with disabilities. Methods: An Integrative Literature Review using five databases: Dialnet, Scielo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The Boolean combinations were: “Personal assistance AND disability”; “Personal assistance AND care AND disability”; “Care AND disability” in English, and “Asistencia personal AND discapacidad”; “Asistencia personal AND cuidados AND discapacidad”; “Cuidados AND discapacidad” in Spanish. A total of 31 scientific articles were obtained. A content analysis was then, with five analysis dimensions emerging. Results: The articles approached the positive aspects of personal assistance. Others established the need for more resources in order to not be an exclusive reality for developed countries. Profiles were made of racialized, young, migrant women as the identity behind (informal) care. From the perspective of a feminist disability care ethic, new forms of providing care are proposed, by changing the focus from individual and family responsibility, towards a social and collective focus. Conclusion: The evidence analyzed considers various dimensions of the epistemo-political tension between personal assistance and care. The meeting point between both perspectives is interdependence and autonomy; on the one side, for people with disabilities, and on the other, for the women profiled as the main caregivers.

Women with disabilities face increased precarity throughout their lives, with one of the most affected areas being their sexual and reproductive health. The aim of this study was to identify and analyze the scientific literature on obstetric violence against women with disabilities. The search was conducted from August to October 2022 in five databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Dialnet, SciELO, and Scopus. A total of 194 articles were retrieved, and after applying selection criteria, ten articles were analyzed. Through thematic analysis, the dimension “ableist obstetric violence towards women with disabilities” emerged. Findings suggest that women with disabilities are marginalized during obstetric care, resulting in untimely attention and cascading interventions. At present, there is scarce literature addressing this phenomenon from a rights-based perspective. Urgent measures are needed to train healthcare teams on the provision of care to people with disabilities. Additionally, it is crucial to critically examine the relationship between healthcare personnel and institutions to women with disabilities within the framework of their sexual and reproductive rights.