Vulnerable women are being failed by maternity services, report finds
Current models of maternity care in the UK are failing to reach pregnant women living in adverse social circumstances, research commissioned by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has found.
Georgina Jones, one of the report’s authors and professor of health psychology at Leeds Beckett University, told The BMJ, “Women are often living in a tangled web of complex inequalities that is beyond their control, and this impacts on the care they receive and the outcomes of that care . . .We’ve really been letting down these women in the way that our maternity and reproductive health services are currently delivered, and strategies and care pathways need to be identified and put in place to remedy this.”
A number of recommendations have been made in the paper including:
- Understanding it is the vulnerable, minoritised and disadvantaged women in society that have an increased risk of maternal death. These women are often living in an entangled web of complex inequalities that is beyond their control, which impacts on the care they receive and the outcomes of that care.
- Strategies and care pathways need to be identified and put in place to improve their situation. These women have been let down in the way that our maternity and reproductive health services are currently delivered.
- We need to find a better way of recording social determinant data. The current way of doing this is inadequate and not fit for purpose, and it doesn’t provide us with enough information to really understand how the complex circumstances of the woman impacts on her maternal outcomes.
- The research shows current models of care are still failing pregnant women who have lived in adverse social circumstances prior to, during and after pregnancy. Maternal outcomes are particularly poor for socially disadvantaged women affected by pre-existing physical or mental health problems; those who misuse substances; those who have a lower level of education; those who are overweight, undernourished or poorly sheltered; and those who are at increased risk due to the threat of abusive and unsupportive partners, families and peers.
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Source: BMJ, 10 February 2022