To celebrate Pride month, this month’s MSWJC will focus on the the treatment of LGBTQIA+ people within perinatal services and things to consider to help provide better care to those in need of it.
As we celebrate Pride Month, it provides an opportunity to reflect on the treatment of LGBTQIA+ people within perinatal services. Despite further visibility now seen in mainstream media, members of this community have experienced long-term marginalisation within society and often report feelings of discrimination and exclusion for both birthing and non-birthing parents when becoming pregnant. This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected these individuals’ experiences of pregnancy within the UK and which aspects of care we need to address to further improve experiences and outcomes.
This paper recruited people identifying as lesbian, bisexual, gay and queer in regards to their sexuality. They also recruited cisgender (gender identity corresponds with the sex registered for them at birth), transgender (gender identity doesn’t correspond with the sex registered for them at birth) and non-binary (gender identity that does not conform to traditional binary beliefs about gender). They also recruited birthing and non-birthing parents. Do you believe that these individuals have a collective experience that can be examined? Do you think these groups have individualised experiences because of their gender identity/sexuality/whether they were the birthing/non-birthing parent?
1754 participants initially responded to the survey for this paper, however only 76 were recruited into the study as they identified as LGTBQ+ – this represents a 96% drop from the initial cohort. Does this accurately depict the percentage of LGBTQ+ relative to wider society? What do you think are the issues with recruiting communities like this into research studies?”
