In this study, delivery care in the city of Londrina, State of Paraná, was investigated under the focus of health professionals' decisions to prescribe procedures such as fasting, enema and trichotomy. The theoretical referential was historical and dialectical materialism. The data survey was carried out in 2000 in five institutions and included individual interviews with ten obstetricians, eight nurses and one midwife. The interviews were interpreted using the speech analysis and then the thematic phrases were extracted. It was possible to identify the working process and its constitutive elements. The physician is the only one with decision power. Such power is reinforced by the following instruments identified in the study: medical prescriptions, nursing staff's work and the place where it is practiced - the hospital. The knowledge that supports this practice is the clinical model, represented by non-individualized interventions that focus more on the agents' needs than on their object's (the parturient).
Obstetricial nursing; Labor, obstetric; Nursing process