Labour rights, vulnerability, resiliency and stress in pregnancy: a comprehensive approach for maternal and perinatal health

Abstract

The current multidimensional view of health during pregnancy is not only based on the absence of complications, but also on the presence of a positive experience, which respects women's dignity and rights. Labour and women's rights raise as some of the important players in guaranteeing a healthy life, in a way that pregnant and post-partum women are protected by rights stated in the Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho (CLT) at this stage of life. The lack of knowledge or disrespect on these rights, however, can have a negative impact on both the mother and the baby, resulting in negative repercussions by removing the temporary stability that should be promoted during pregnancy. The deprivation of labour rights together with some unfavourable mother's characteristics - such as unhealthy life habits and mental health problems - can put women in an unfortunate and vulnerable situation, making it necessary for woman to develop extra resilience. In addition, it can impact the mother's degree of vulnerability and degree of work satisfaction, leading, also, to a greater perception of stress. There are clues, however, that improvement in women's knowledge about their rights is still necessary. The dimensions of the repercussions of their lack of knowledge about their labour rights and of the disrespect for these rights are still unclear. Considering all these, the current proposal aims to investigate the degree of information and the degree of perception of disrespect of women's labour rights, and the related repercussions on maternal and perinatal health. It would make it possible to know how much women still need to get to know about their rights, and how these rights can help in the promotion of well-being for both the mother and the baby. In this way, results obtained in this study can be used, in the future, to develop and implement policies to ensure women's knowledge about their rights, and to better protect them. Therefore, the objective of the study is to comprehend the degree of post-partum women's knowledge and perception of disrespect for their work rights, and how/if this is associated with characteristics and outcomes including functionality, resilience, vulnerability, work satisfaction, perceived stress and maternal and perinatal complications. To this end, a cross-sectional study will be carried out, including post-partum women who delivered in the centers during the study. Participating women will sign a consent form. Review of the participants' and their babies' medical charts will be made, as well as presential interviews mediated by a research assistant, in which forms developed in the REDCap system will be applied: pre-selection form, a questionnaire about knowledge of women's work rights and perception of disrespect of these rights (to be developed), Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0), Resilience Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Work Satisfaction Questionnaire (S20/23) and instrument to measure social vulnerability. Data collected will be entered in an Excel spreadsheet, and will be tested for normality. The T-student test will be implemented to compare variables presented on average, while medians will be compared using the Mann-Whitney test, and categorical variables will be compared using the X2 Pearson's test. (AU)