Cremesp investigates allegations of obstetric violence against a starred doctor

“I’m a rock, but this story got to me. It’s a very heavy story.” The outburst of influencer Shantal Verdelho on a social network this Tuesday (14) was about the audio leak in which she accuses obstetrician Renato Kalil of obstetric violence.

Cremesp (Regional Council of Medicine of the State of São Paulo) opened an investigation into the case and informed through a note that the investigations are proceeding under secrecy. According to the entity, details of the accusation will only be revealed after the end of the process.

Considered a reference in Brazilian obstetrics and famous for giving birth to celebrities, Kalil denies the accusations, claims that the birth took place without “any complications” and that the video was edited, with phrases taken out of context.

The case came to light this week, when audio and video circulated on the internet with disrespectful phrases attributed to the doctor and uttered during the birth of Shantal’s daughter, about three months ago.

In the audio recording, the influencer says that, when watching the birth recording, made by her husband, Matheus Verdelho, she saw that the doctor was systematically cursing her. “It’s a lot of swearing and swearing all the time,” she says.

Shantal cites as examples the phrases “Make an effort, for**” and “Mother’s daughter, faggot, she doesn’t exert force properly”. In addition, the influencer reports that the doctor “got a tantrum” because she asked Kalil not to give her an episiotomy, a procedure in which a woman’s perineum is cut.

“The video has him tearing me up with his hand. The baby didn’t even have her head there yet. I didn’t have the slightest need for that,” she says. “I was just supposed to get really blown up afterwards and say, ‘You were right, I should have had an episiotomy.’

Research has shown that more than half of women undergo episiotomy during natural childbirth. At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that the practice is necessary in only 10% of cases.

The leak and the repercussion of the case led other women to comment on inappropriate episodes, sexist or moral harassment that would have been carried out by Kalil.

British journalist Samantha Pearson, correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Brazil, told O Globo newspaper that she had experienced traumatic episodes of bullying in Kalil’s office.

According to Pearson, after giving birth to her first child, she heard the doctor tell her husband not to worry because he had “made a stitch there,” referring to the patient’s vagina.

“He talked about my vagina as if I wasn’t there. I spent weeks crying alone at home, not knowing if he had given more stitches than necessary, afraid of having sex, of feeling pain,” said the journalist, according to the newspaper.

Years later, during a prenatal examination of her second pregnancy, Pearson would have overheard a fat-phobic comment from the doctor. “Samantha, you’re going to have to lose weight, because otherwise your husband will betray you,” the doctor would have said, according to O Globo.

Through his assistance, Kalil said that he has been an obstetrician and gynecologist for 36 years and that, throughout his career, he has performed more than 10,000 births, without any complaints or incidents.

The note goes on to say: “Mrs. Shantall’s birth took place uneventful and was praised by her on her social networks for 30 days after the birth. Surprisingly, Dr. Renato Kalil started receiving attacks based on a edited video, with content taken out of context. The video in its entirety shows that there is no irregularity or inappropriate posture during the procedure. Attacks on its reputation will be subject to legal measures, with the analysis of the video in its entirety.”

For midwife Ana Cristina Duarte, an activist against obstetric violence, “it is very difficult to characterize this type of violence because people tend to interpret these expressions as a joke, and not as violence”.

According to the WHO, however, obstetric violence goes beyond physical aggression and includes “deep humiliation and verbal abuse, coercive or non-consented medical procedures, lack of confidentiality, violations of privacy”.

For the activist, the Shantal case is important because, as there is a recording, “it is not a question of interpretation”.

“These are misogynist speeches that are part of our social structure and leave marks on the souls of these women. This doctor is part of an outdated and sexist obstetric care scheme”, he says.

She says that people who work with humanized births are “a reason for ridicule and persecution within the maternity hospitals, while doctors like Kalil are greeted with a red carpet.”

The writer, screenwriter and columnist at leaf Tati Bernardi says he has never suffered obstetric violence, but says he had a bad experience in the only consultation he had with Kalil. She was pregnant, and the doctor didn’t even examine her.

“He ignored what I was saying and only talked about himself. He exposed information about his wife and other patients as well. I thought he was an asshole, and I never came back”, he says.

“Then, people I know who gave birth with him told me that, when the birth was normal, he would say: ‘Let’s give the husband a stitch, so that the vagina becomes tighter for the husband.’ I just thought: ‘I’m glad I did I didn’t go there anymore.”

The experience inspired two columns by Tati at Leaf. In one of them, entitled “Dr. Machismo”, she says she consulted a doctor “treated like an untouchable star (in fact, he charged me a fortune and didn’t even touch me, his assistants do everything)”.

And he goes on: “After an uninterrupted solarium for an hour, about how amazing he was, I had five minutes to ask if it was okay to walk a little forgetful. To which he replied, tenderly, elegantly: ‘Honey, women are already stupid , imagine with progesterone causing cerebral edema!’ I never went back there.”