The Rights of Childbearing Woman

1.  Every woman has the right to health care before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth.

2.  Every woman and infant thas the right to receive care that is consistent with current scientific evidence and about benefits and risks

3. Every woman has the right to choose a midwife or physician as her maternity care provider.

4.  Every woman has the right to choose her birth setting from the full range of safe options available in her community.

5.  Every woman has the right to leave her maternity caregiver and select another if she becomes dissatisfied with her care.

6.  Every woman has the right to information about the preofessional identity and qualifications of those involved with her care and to know when those involved are trainees.

7.  Every woman has the right to communicate with caregivers and receive all care in privacy, which may involve excluding nonessential personnel.

8.  Every woman has the right to receive maternity care that identifies and addresses social and behavioral factors that affect her health and that of her baby.

9.  Every woman has the right to full and clear information about benefits, risks and cost of the procedures, drugs, tests and treatmants offered to her, and all other reasonable options, including no intervention.

10.  Every woman has the right to accept or refuse procedures, drugs, tests and treatments and to have her choices honored.  She has the right to chnage her mind.

11.  Every woman has the right to be informed if her caregivers wish to enroll her or her infant in a research study.

12.  Every woman has the right to unrestricted acces to all available records about her pregnancy, labor, birth postartum course and infant.

13.  Every woman has the right to receive maternity care that is apporpriate to her cultural and religious background and to receive information in a language in which she can communicate.

14.  Every woman has the right to have family members and friends of her choice present during all aspects of her maternity care.

15.  Every woman has the right to receive contiunuous social, emotional and physical support during laboar and birth from a  acaregiver who has been trained in labor support.

16.  Every woman has the right to receive full advance information about risks and benefits of a reasonalby available ethods for relieving pain during labor and birth, including methods that do not require the use of drugs.

17.  Every woman has the right to freedom of movement during labor unencumbered by tubes, wires or other apparatus.  She also has the right to give birth in the position of her choice.

18.  Every woman has the right to virtually uninterupted contact with her newborn from the moment of birth as long as she and the baby are healthy and do not need care that requires seperation.

19.  Every woman has the right to receive complete information about the benefits of breastfeeding well in advance of labor, to refuse supplemental bottles and other actions that interfere with breastfeeding , and to have access to skilled lactation support for as long as she chooses to breastfeed.

20.  Every woman has the right to decide collaboratively with caregivers when she and her baby will leave the birth site for home based on their conditionas and circumstances.

Consideration and respect for every woman under all circumstances is the foundation of this statement of rights, developed by Childbirth Connections.  For more in-depth information on maternity care rights and a discussion of the fundamentsl problems with maternity care in the U.S. which led to this statement, please go to  Childbirth Connection.org here.