United States: Childbirth is a dreadful procedure, and it is made worse by being ill-treated by health care providers when they are giving birth, a recent study assert.
Disturbing Findings on Mistreatment
One in eight women who give birth get mistreated, the study shows.
Majorly, women who experienced their requests for assistance during labor were rebuffed or averted, according to study data. Very close to 8% of women experienced this for themselves, as reported by HealthDay.
In addition, 4% of women testified they were scolded and shouted at by health care providers, and 2% of women said health workers threatened to refuse them treatment or forced them to take medication they didn’t agree with.
Impact of Social Stigma
According to the lead researcher, Chen Liu, the powerful social stigma that is common and spreads through all levels of society impacts the birth experience and how care is offered.
“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,” Liu added in a university news release.
The researchers added that negative childbirth experiences among women could have long-running consequences.
According to scientists, those who are the target of bullying can develop posttraumatic stress disorder, bad body image, and a sense of being dehumanized. Apart from that, the birth of such kids makes women less likely to have another child.
For the study, researchers polled women who were giving birth in 2020 in New York City and six more states (including Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia).
Call to Action for Improvement
“Mistreatment in childbirth has been widely documented in low- and middle-income countries, but this study shows that respectful maternity care is an important quality metric that we should also be tracking in the United States,” said senior researcher Jamie Daw, an assistant professor at Columbia, in health policy and management.
Comprehensive Approach Needed
“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,” Daw added.
The experts indicated they only looked at the conduct during birth, and it can be possible that some of the women also experience such behavior during pregnancy or after delivery, as reported by HealthDay.
“No one should experience mistreatment during what is one of the most important moments of their life,” Liu said. “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.”