International Platform on Obstetric Violence (IPOV): an innovative tool for a respectful maternity and childbirth care

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Over-medicalisation, disrespect, violence and abuse in maternity and childbirth care have been identified as an urgent global public health concern by leading international human rights stakeholders (WHO 2014, Simonovic 2019, Council of Europe 2019). Their growing concern over the magnitude of this issue has resulted in repeated calls to action. The IPOV-RESPECTFUL CARE project intends to respond this call to address obstetric violence and ensure respectful maternity and childbirth care through the development and implementation of the International Platform on Obstetric Violence. The Platform is a concrete tool to support the bridging of bridge academic research and public policy, training for health professionals, elevating women's perspectives, and public engagement on the matter. The Platform will be an innovative, international, interdisciplinary, intersectoral and cross-cultural digital and interactive tool for producing, sharing, and transferring knowledge, systematising, and exchanging good practices, acquiring skills and planning gender-based innovative training packages on respectful maternity and childbirth care among health professionals, health training managers, decision makers, researchers, women, and all of society. To achieve these goals, a network of 39 breakthrough experts, from 19 participating organisations and 9 countries (universities, research centres, civil organisations, and health maternity care institutions) will collaborate through strategic and regular exchanges to support horizontal communication patterns. Experts will adopt cross-cultural approaches and participatory methods to support critical thinking and multivocal spaces to facilitate deconstruction, connection and reconstruction of 'naturalised' ways of caring.