Volume 6, Issue 2, June 2015, Pages 59–65
“To be taken seriously” : women's reflections on how migration and resettlement experiences influence their healthcare needs during childbearing in Sweden
Highlights
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- Caregivers/midwives should be aware of the hardships women face stemming from experiences of migration and resettlement.
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- Structural constraints such as the “triple jeopardy” of ethnicity, SES and gender increased women's needs of support in childbearing.
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- When the women were taken seriously and experienced a confident, caring relationship with caregivers/midwives it enabled the women to boost their sense of self, and to recognize their capabilities, as well as their embodied knowledge.
Abstract
Objective
To
use an intersectional approach to analyze women's reflections on how
their migration and resettlement experiences to Sweden influenced their
health and healthcare needs during childbearing.
Methods
Focus-group
discussions, pair interviews and individual interviews were conducted
in southern Sweden between 2006 and 2009, with 25 women originating from
17 different countries with heterogeneous backgrounds that had
experienced childbirth in Sweden. Qualitative content analysis was used
with an intersectional approach, taking into consideration intersections
of ethnicity, socio-economic status (SES) and gender.
Findings
The
hardships of migration, resettlement, and constraints in the daily life
made the women feel overstrained, tense, and disembodied. Being treated
as a stranger and ignored or rejected in healthcare encounters was
devaluing and discriminating. The women stressed that they felt stronger
and had fewer complications during pregnancy and labor when they were
“taken seriously” and felt that they had a confident, caring
relationship with caregivers/midwives. This, therefore, enabled the
women to boost their sense of self, and to recognize their capabilities,
as well as their “embodied knowledge”.
Conclusion
Caregivers/midwives
should be aware of the hardships the women face. Hardships stem from
experiences of migration and resettlement as well as from structural
constraints such as the “triple jeopardy” of ethnicity, SES and gender,
which increase women's needs of support in childbearing. Such awareness
is necessary when promoting health and reducing the unnecessary
suffering and victimization of women, their children, and their
families. It is a matter of patient safety and equity.
Keywords
- Women;
- Perinatal support;
- Migration;
- Discrimination;
- Quality of care;
- Intersectional approach
- Faculty of Professional Studies, University of Nordland, NO-8049 Bodø, Norway. Tel.:
+47 75517544.
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