The Respectful Maternity Care Charter addresses the issue of disrespect and abuse toward women and newborns who are utilizing maternal and newborn care services and provides a platform for improvement by:
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Raising awareness for women’s and newborns’ human rights guarantees that are recognized in internationally adopted United Nations and other multinational declarations, conventions and covenants;
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Highlighting the connection between human rights guarantees and healthcare delivery relevant to maternal and newborn healthcare;
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Increasing the capacity of maternal, newborn and child health advocates to participate in human rights processes;
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Aligning women’s demand for high-quality maternal and newborn care with international human rights law standards;
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Providing a foundation for holding governments, the maternity care system and communities accountable to these rights;
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Supporting healthcare workers in providing respectful care to women and newborns and creating a healthy working environment.
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You'll find the 7 Rights of Childbearing women in the PDF resource and Better Births class below on Youtube.
We have also adapted the Mothers on Respect Index and Mothers Autonomy in Decision making as a resource tool for women and care providers.
The IDECIDE resource has been developed from the UK NHS iDecide tool. It is a decision-making and consent framework, created by women, for women. Watch the Youtube Better Births class below for more discussion about the resource. It is designed to help aide women make informed decisions about interventions during pregnancy, labour, birth and postpartum. It does rely on care providers providing you with up to date information and evidence based information. We recommend the following resources for up to date, evidence based information about interventions, testing and routine practice in the maternity space:
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Better Births class
