Resumen

NAGAHAMA, Elizabeth Eriko Ishida  y  SANTIAGO, Silvia Maria. The medical institutionalization of childbirth in Brazil. Ciênc. saúde coletiva [online]. 2005, vol.10, n.3, pp. 651-657. ISSN 1413-8123.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232005000300021.

The object of this study was to point the concept of the establishment of attention in health, especially to the woman’s health as a tool of the hegemonic power on attention, specifically in the institutional assistance to the delivery. This work describes the strategies of the institutional hegemony implementation on the female body employed through the Politics in health and practices in medical attention. The power of the State in the establishment of attention is recorded during the historical reconstruction of the maternal and infant health programs of the twenties and eighties, where it was identified that the ideological control of women’s health represented ways of control of their sexuality as a reproduction tool. At the practices in medical attention it was discussed questions about the hegemony of the medical power and the female body medication. The delivery hospitalizing process was fundamental to knowledge acquisition in this area and to the development of the medical knowledge, and indeed culminated with the establishment of the medication of the female body.

Palabras llave : Delivery; Institutionalization; Medical practices.