“Something is off with this COVID”: Production of mistrust in Russian obstetrics in a pandemic situation

Abstract

The article examines the mistrust of official information about coronavirus experienced by both doctors and patients who find themselves in the “special situation” of childbirth in a pandemic, and the practices of mistrust they create in response to the pandemic's challenges and restrictive epidemic measures. I refer to the theoretical approach proposed in recently published works on the anthropology of mistrust, which proposes to move away from the perception of this phenomenon only in negative terms: as a social failure and an obstacle to the development of social institutions. Proponents of this approach consider mistrust to be a special form of critical knowledge that is implemented in a variety of effective strategies. The pandemic, as a situation of high risk and uncertainty, has revealed numerous conflicts in which mistrust plays an important role. The pandemic emergency does not unite patients, in particular pregnant women and women in labor, with doctors but divides them even more than before. Women refuse medical care during pregnancy and choose to have out-of-hospital births more often than before the pandemic. The strategy of searching for medical or alternative health specialists with whom women can create trusting relationships is becoming increasingly urgent. In turn, doctors, as well as patients, often do not trust official information and the system in which they work but needed to adapt to the requirements of the governing and controlling authorities. The article is based on the author's field materials (interviews with obstetricians-gynecologists, midwives and women who gave birth during the pandemic). I also use various Internet resources, including the official pages of maternity hospitals in social networks and personal blogs of doctors.