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Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine

In this article, I seek to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted childbirth in Puerto Rico, an island that was already in recovery following the occurrence of two devastating hurricanes in the fall of 2017 and a major earthquake in the winter of 2020. Thus, I argue that it is important t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Reyes, Emaline
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8022455/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33869565
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.613831
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author Reyes, Emaline
author_facet Reyes, Emaline
author_sort Reyes, Emaline
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description In this article, I seek to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted childbirth in Puerto Rico, an island that was already in recovery following the occurrence of two devastating hurricanes in the fall of 2017 and a major earthquake in the winter of 2020. Thus, I argue that it is important to discuss not only how individual disasters impact birth, but also how their compounding effects do so. In order to address these research questions, I conducted remote interviews with Puerto Rican birth workers and researchers. During times of crisis, this pandemic included, home and midwife-attended births have become increasingly more popular. However, Puerto Rican midwives and doulas currently have less institutional support than ever. In a time of quarantine when home births are rising, we need to consider whether society is designed to facilitate these models of care. In Puerto Rico, pre-pandemic, there was a less than 1% home birth rate and there still is a lack of legal recognition and protections for homebirth midwives. As this article demonstrates, an acknowledgment of the near-invisible labors of these birth workers is needed, in addition to supplies, support, and protections for them—and not just in times of “crisis.”
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spelling pubmed-80224552021-04-15 Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine Reyes, Emaline Front Sociol Sociology In this article, I seek to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted childbirth in Puerto Rico, an island that was already in recovery following the occurrence of two devastating hurricanes in the fall of 2017 and a major earthquake in the winter of 2020. Thus, I argue that it is important to discuss not only how individual disasters impact birth, but also how their compounding effects do so. In order to address these research questions, I conducted remote interviews with Puerto Rican birth workers and researchers. During times of crisis, this pandemic included, home and midwife-attended births have become increasingly more popular. However, Puerto Rican midwives and doulas currently have less institutional support than ever. In a time of quarantine when home births are rising, we need to consider whether society is designed to facilitate these models of care. In Puerto Rico, pre-pandemic, there was a less than 1% home birth rate and there still is a lack of legal recognition and protections for homebirth midwives. As this article demonstrates, an acknowledgment of the near-invisible labors of these birth workers is needed, in addition to supplies, support, and protections for them—and not just in times of “crisis.” Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8022455/ /pubmed/33869565 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.613831 Text en Copyright © 2021 Reyes. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Reyes, Emaline
Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine
title Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine
title_full Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine
title_fullStr Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine
title_full_unstemmed Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine
title_short Born in Captivity: The Experiences of Puerto Rican Birth Workers and Their Clients in Quarantine
title_sort born in captivity: the experiences of puerto rican birth workers and their clients in quarantine
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8022455/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33869565
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.613831
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