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3The article is based on a qualitative textual analysis of the current situation using the Vkontakte public "Happiness of motherhood", where modern mothers from Russia discuss with each other the practical and emotional problems associated with their parenthood.
Keywords: intensive motherhood, post-Soviet Russia, changes in norms DOI:
NON-MEDICAL CARE FOR WOMEN DURING PERIODS OF BODILY VULNERABILITY AND CHANGES IN
SOCIAL STATUS
Tatiana L. Kuksa
Head of the Legislation Reform Department at Institute for Public Administration and Governance, HSE University, Center of Medical Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; e-mail: tutosha@gmail.com
Abstract: The infrastructural, legislative, and financial changes in Russian obstetric care over the past two decades have been accompanied by updated standards, clinical guidelines and medical thinking, the admission of family participation in childbirth and the emergence of new perinatal jobs ("agents of care") outside of biomedical conventions and budgetary institutions. Grassroots self-organization and institutionalization of professional communities (comprising, as a rule, mothers of many children with high educational and social capital, having medical, psychological, midwifery or other competencies) contributed to the popularization of "Odent", "soft", "careful", "patient-oriented" approaches to hospital care childbirth and the emergence of certified doulas with the skills of informational, physical, domestic, emotional support for clients. The possibility of "continuous" and "non-judgmental" non-medical care in vulnerable periods of life expands the agency (choice) and improves the position of a woman when faced with physical and mental difficulties in the family and when interacting with a monopolized and closed system of obstetric care. The report will present an analysis of texts containing the representation and interpretation by doulas of the practices and approaches of non-medical support for women during pregnancy, childbirth, the onset of motherhood (periods of maximum vulnerability — a radical change in legal and psychophysical statuses). This research is based on field ethnography of Russian perinatal practices and analysis of their representations since 2010 in various contexts and sources (semi-structured in-depth interviews, social networks, media resources, legal acts).
Keywords: non-medical care, individual support of childbirth, doula; partner childbirth, patient vulnerability, informed consent, patient choice, patient rights
DOI:
NAVIGATING INSTITUTIONAL INCONSISTENCIES VIA DIFFERENT EMOTIONAL STYLES: COMMUNICATION IN MATERNITY CARE IN RUSSIA
Anastasia Novkunskaya
Associate professor, Department of Sociology, Institute for Interdisciplinary Health Research, European University at Saint-Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia; e-mail: anovkunskaya@eu.spb.ru
Abstract: Over the past decades, the healthcare system in Russia has undergone multiple changes, affecting both its institutional arrangement and the practice of interpersonal interactions. The commercialization of medicine, consumerization of patient behavior, emergence of new medical approaches (Temkina 2016, 2017), and changes in professional standards of care have created complex settings in which social norms and rules turn out to be numerous and sometimes unreliable.
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