Petition Platform for the rights of birth

Platafor­ma Pro Dere­chos del Nacimien­to (PDN)
C/Santapau, 59 1º
08016-BARCELONA

http://www.pangea.org/pdn
E‑mail:  pdn(arobase)pangea.org

Barcelona, 20th. Of April, 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

I´m writ­ing this let­ter on behalf of “Platafor­ma Pro Dere­chos del Nacimien­to” (plat­form for the rights of birth). This enti­ty, formed by asso­ci­a­tions and indi­vid­u­als, will be cel­e­brat­ing this year its tenth anniversary.

Our prin­ci­pal tar­get is ask­ing our state health sys­tem to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the financ­ing of nat­ur­al birth, regard­less of the moth­er’s deci­sion to give birth at a pri­vate clin­ic, a hos­pi­tal or at home. And above all, that par­ents will always see their will respected.

We want the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the OMS (WHO, World Health Orga­ni­za­tion) in regard to the rights of the preg­nant woman and the baby to be respect­ed in our coun­try, Spain. These rec­om­men­da­tions were col­lect­ed and pub­lished by the OMS (WHO) at the Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence at For­t­aleza (Brazil), on the 22nd. and 26th. of April, 1985. Among these rights are the fol­low­ing points:

• The new-born must always be with its moth­er if they are both in healthy con­di­tions. There should be no med­ical exam­i­na­tion to jus­ti­fy the part­ing of the moth­er and the healthy child.
• Breast-feed­ing should be encour­aged as soon as pos­si­ble, even before the moth­er and her baby leave the mater­ni­ty ward.
• Birth giv­ing women should not be lying down on their backs (in the tra­di­tion­al obstet­ri­cal posi­tion) dur­ing child­birth. Women should be encour­aged to walk dur­ing the dilata­tion peri­od and be able to choose the posi­tion they want to give birth in.
• Child­birth must not be induced for con­ve­nience. No birth should be arti­fi­cial­ly pro­voked if it is not strict­ly and med­ical­ly nec­es­sary. No coun­try should have arti­fi­cial induced births above a 10% rate.

We are aware of the fact that child­birth con­di­tions leave per­ma­nent marks in human beings and that the inter­rup­tion of the nat­ur­al process of birth inter­feres in the rela­tion­ship between moth­er and child in the short and long run. We would like to spread this infor­ma­tion to make it get to as many peo­ple as possible.

We intend to spend this year gath­er­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion on cur­rent inves­ti­ga­tions in this area.

We would appre­ci­ate if you could send us any sci­en­tif­ic research in the top­ic of the effects derived from sep­a­rat­ing moth­er and child in the short and long term.

With best regards,

Merche Escursell
Platafor­ma Pro Dere­chos del Nacimien­to (PDN)