More than 1 in 8 new mothers report mistreatment during childbirth: Study

Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech
·2 min read

Story at a glance

  • A new study published in JAMA Network Open on Thursday shows that about 13 percent of new mothers have experienced mistreatment.

  • The most common forms of mistreatment were being shouted at, scolded or ignored.

  • Some new mothers reported being denied treatment or forced to undergo treatment they didn’t want by the healthcare provider.

As the U.S. grapples with a maternal health crisis, a new study shows more than 1 out of 8 new moms are shouted at, scolded or ignored by a healthcare provider during their deliveries.

The study published in JAMA Network Open Thursday used data from the 2020 Postpartum Assessment of Health Survey, a large-scale data collection effort on the health and well-being of postpartum people conducted by Columbia University.

Columbia University’s PAHS collects data from post-partum people in New York City and six states: Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah and Virginia.

The experiences of 4,458 post-partum people were used for the study.

Out of the survey respondents, about 13 percent reported being mistreated in some way during their delivery.

New moms most commonly reported being ignored or having a health care provider refuse their request for help or fail to respond to a request for help “in a timely manner,” according to the report.

Moms who said they were mistreated during their deliveries also frequently said they were “shouted at or scolded” by their healthcare providers.

A small percentage of these moms said their healthcare providers threatened to withhold treatment or accept treatment they did not want.

Negative experiences during childbirth can have long-term effects on a new parent and can result in numerous chronic mental health issues like “post-traumatic stress disorder, negative body image, feelings of dehumanization and changes in future reproductive decisions,” researchers said in a statement.

Not all new moms experience mistreatment at the same rates, the study shows.

Mothers of Southwest Asian, Middle Eastern or North African descent were the most likely to report being mistreated followed by mothers of multiple minority races or ethnicities and then Black mothers.

New parents who identified as LGBTQ were more than twice as likely to report being mistreated by a healthcare provider than non-LGBTQ moms.

Moms that were unmarried at the time of their delivery, low-income, obese, experiencing an unplanned cesarean or those with a history of substance use disorder or mood disorders also suffered higher rates of mistreatment.

The study results parallel with findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last year on the mistreatment of expecting mothers during their pregnancies.

That data found one out of five expecting mothers experiences mistreatment during their pregnancy and that those moms are more likely to be Black or Hispanic.

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