Medical humanities and narrative medicine in perinatal care.

The main purpose of medical humanities is to integrate scientific knowledge ofthe human body with humanistic knowledge of the patient's experiences within the context of their personal history. The healthcare dimension is created in line with a bio-psycho-social model of medicine that centres around the patient's person. In narrative medicine attention focuses on the subject's biological and psycho-social variety and uniqueness based on "active listening", which requires competent physicians who are able to capture all the implicit elements in the demand for care, overcoming the tendency to select a priori those considered significant according to their own pre-coded mindsets.