Humanitarian migrant women’s experiences of maternity care in Nordic countries
Citation: Leppälä S, Lamminpää R, Gissler M, et al. Humanitarian migrant women’s experiences of maternity care in Nordic countries: A systematic integrative review of qualitative research. Midwifery. 2020;80:102572.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: No.
Funding sources: Finnish Concordia Fund and the Finnish Cultural Foundation North Savo Regional Fund.
What is this? Pregnant humanitarian migrant women are more likely to have worse maternal morbidity and sub-optimal maternity care than country-born women. Information on why this might be, and how to improve, might help policy makers and practitioners to improve these services.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for qualitative studies on the lived experiences with maternity care of humanitarian migrant women in Nordic countries. They restricted their searches to articles published in English between 2013 and 2018 and did the search in December 2018. They included 10 studies (198 migrant women) which were from Finland (2 studies), Norway (3) and Sweden (5).
What was found? The following themes were obstacles for humanitarian migrant women in seeking, accessing, and attending maternity care: diminished negotiation power, sense of insecurity and care-related discrimination.
In the theme of diminished negotiation power, the sub-themes were pre-existing gaps in health and healthcare literacy; late, lacking, and incongruent provision of health information; and diminished or unrecognized care needs.
In the theme of sense of insecurity, the sub-themes were limited ability to convey needs; fear of negative consequences; and suspicion and mistrust towards authorities.
In the theme of care-related discrimination, the sub-themes were complicated, questioned, or denied access to care; and negative attitudes and behaviours.
Implications: The authors of the review recommended enabling the negotiation power and sense of security of migrant women, as well as preventing care-related discrimination through improved cultural competence and education, as ways to improve their maternity care and outcomes.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of place of residence, culture/language, sex and personal characteristics associated with discrimination (humanitarian migrant women).
This summary was prepared by Tuba Yavuz, edited by Sydney Johnson and finalized by Mike Clarke.