A recent research funded by Columbia University studied the prevalence of mistreatment by healthcare providers towards the new mothers during childbirth.
To study about mistreatment, researchers asked 4,598 new mothers across 6 states of Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah and Virginia plus New York City, whether they were mistreated during the childbirth. The data was then categorized according to type of mistreatment, demographic, and social and clinical characteristics of those experiences.
The study titled “Disparities in Mistreatment During Childbirth”, revealed that more than one in eight new mothers were mistreated during childbirth in 2020, especially the women who were unmarried, Medicaid insured, identified as LGBTQ, obese, had a history of substance, family violence or mood disorders, as well as those who had an unplanned C-section.
“Many of our results suggest that pervasive structural social stigma permeates the birth experience and shapes how care is received,” Chen Lui, MS, research associate in Columbia Mailman School’s Department of Health Policy and Management, and first author, noted.
“For example, we found that LGBTQ-identifying individuals were twice as likely to experience mistreatment, driven by higher rates of feeling forced to accept unwelcome care or being denied wanted treatment. These findings align with prior work demonstrating poorer birth outcomes among sexual minorities,” Lui added.
Race and ethnicity-wise, the new mothers from South-west Asia, Middle East and North Africa were mistreated the most, followed by multiracial mothers, Black mothers, white mothers, Native American or Alaskan Native mothers, Asian mothers, and Hispanic mothers.
The study published in JAMA Network Open medical journal noted that the most common forms of mistreatment were being “ignored, refused request for help, or fail to respond in a timely manner.” Many new moms complained about being “shouted at or scolded” by health care clinicians during the childbirth, whereas several others said that clinicians threatened to withhold treatment, or forced them to accept treatment they didn’t want.
Jamie Daw, assistant professor in Health Policy and Management, and senior author, commented, “Reporting on these experiences is the first step to addressing them, holding health care providers accountable, and developing effective interventions to improve respectful maternity care.”
However, the findings can’t be generalized for the entire nation as only a few states were considered in the study. Also, it is to be noted that the study has some limitations as it was based on self-reported data, and it only took into account childbirth period while it is possible that new moms could have also suffered mistreatment during pregnancy or postpartum period.
“No one should experience mistreatment during what is one of the most important moments of their life. We hope this study is a call to action for implementation and evaluation of patient-centered, interventions to address structural health system factors that contribute to these negative experiences,” concluded Liu.
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