Rede Cegonha network and the methodological challenges of implementing networks in the SUS

This paper addresses strategies employed in the implementation of the Rede Cegonha ("Stork Network") (RC), considering its contribution to change the delivery and birth care model in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS). It contextualizes RC as a project signed by SUS management interagency bodies and the importance of implementing the services' strategies. In this sense, it points out two essential axes supporting the RC, which are strategic to promote the intervention-analysis in obstetric-neonatal care, namely, institutional support (IS) and teamwork training. The IS enables the RC to become a collective construction assumed by teams in their action spaces and is pointed out as an innovative way of implementing health-related projects. The intervention-training methodology innovates training to intervene in work. These experiences are affirmed as potentiators of the RC in creating the conditions to change the technocratic rationale of management and care throughout labor and birth.