Heloisa Lessa, midwife.

Heloisa Lessa PhD, is an autonomous midwife attending home and hospital births in Rio de Janeiro and a birth activist. She trained with indigenous traditional midwives. She organized several birth conferences in Brazil and abroad and is an international speaker. She is the founder of a multidisciplinary team of midwifes and obstetricians caring for women in Rio and the Founder of Instituto Michel Odent. In 2019 Heloisa won the Human Rights in Childbirth, she received over 350 nominations for the Champions Prize.

Today Brasil is considered by the international birth community as a reference to demonstrate the common association between skyrocketing rates of caesareans and poor birth statistics (number of babies alive and healthy at births, maternal health problems, etc). However there is something else, which is special about Rio. It is the activity of a core of highly motivated people - in particular Heloisa Lessa as a homebirth midwife - who act as the potential catalysts for huge mutations. Can they reverse the pendulum? If so, Brazil will teach the whole world that the rising rates of caesareans are reversible. If so, more people will understand that, in terms of safety, the priority is to rediscover the basic needs of women in labor and to try to make the births as easy as possible. Heloisa Lessa is one of those who prove that a home birth with an experienced and motherly midwife can be much safer and healthy than a birth in a conventional hospital.

Dr Michel Odent. Obstetrician.
Director of Primal Health Research Centre- London. UK

After being on the cover of the most influential magazine of the State of Rio de Janeiro, in 2007, the renowned obstetric nurse Heloisa Lessa was persecuted by the Regional Medical Council of Rio de Janeiro (CREMERJ).

Two months after its publication in assembly with its associates, CREMERJ recommended what later became a resolution: that doctors may not participate nor assist women who give birth at home. (Resolutions number 265 and 266 of 2012)

Articles of explicit attacks in the media of the said Council culminated in the opening of a police inquiry in 2011. The aforementioned Police Inquiry REG 1299 / 2011- MPRJ 2011.01182543 accuses the defendant of placing the life of a specific client for having attended her birth at home. Such an inquiry has been closed, however, Resolutions 265 and 266, which were rejected at first instance, are currently in force. These Regional Medical Council resolutions enable physicians to be prevented from working in conjunction with home delivery teams or even the patient who opts for a home birth.

In 2018, new investment of CREMERJ. A Public Civil Action (6001, Case: 0051041-0 .2018. 4. 02. 5101 - 2018.51.01.051041-4 -) with request for injunction against The Federal and Regional Council of Nursing and the obstetric nurses Halyne Limeira Pessanha and Heloisa Lessa.

This action has as principle to prevent Obstetric Nurses from acting autonomously in home births and prevented them from practicing obstetrics without medical supervision.

The offices in which Heloisa Lessa and Halyne Limeira are registered in the public civil action are centered on a document referring to a fee budget given to a pregnant woman for later submission to the Health Plan for reimbursement purposes. There was no malpractice, recklessness, negligence, violence, or any other lack of assistance on the part of the professionals. Only the willingness to meet a woman in a dignified manner, respecting her rights to choose the form and place where she wants to give birth.

This action has as the clear objective of preventing the right of choice of the woman regarding the place of birth and the professional who will assist her, besides preventing the midwife or obstetrical nurse from acting autonomously.

In view of the Brazilian political scenario and, in particular, the declarations and positions that are being publicly assumed by the current CREMERJ board as: the defense of the Kristeller maneuver, the prohibition of doctors to sign the so-called birth plan, humanization of childbirth, an attempt to link negatively the issues of humanized childbirth and abortion and the fierce criticism published at the recent Congress of the Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics - FIGO held in Rio. Acts such as these concern us as to the direction of civil action which is currently in effect.

So, the support for the candidacy of Heloisa Lessa is also due to the need to give visibility to the setbacks that are happening and will still happen in Brazil regarding the violation of women's rights in the issue of childbirth and birth.