The human right to health means that every person should be able to access affordable healthcare necessary to maintain health and well-being. The World Health Organization defines that to include the “highest attainable standard of health,” and as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This robust concept of health underscores the need for maternity care that attends not only to the physical survival of mother and baby, but that respects their psychological and emotional well-being during birth, postnatally, and in the years to come.
In maternity care, the right to health demands affordable access to the full range of health services necessary for pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. This includes access to
- A safe, hygienic environment for labor, birth, and postpartum;
- Emergency medical services;
- Essential reproductive health medicines; and
- Skilled birth attendants.
All women should be able to access providers who have the training and skills to support them in normal physiological childbirth, including more complicated physiological childbirth such as breech and twin birth. All women should be able to access providers trained to safely assist with obstructed labor, provide surgical delivery when necessary, and administer emergency medicines.