Grant: National Women's Health Res. Init.:Pan-Can. Women's Health Coa. - Hubs

We propose to gather parents, doctors, nurses, midwives, lawyers, researchers, and community leaders into a Hub. We will work together to improve the experience of care during pregnancy and childbirth. In Canada, human rights laws and health policies say that everyone should be treated kindly and with respect regardless of when, how, where, and with whom they experience pregnancy, childbirth and/or parenting. Yet, our studies show that Indigenous, queer, trans, and/or are racialized people; newcomers to Canada, and people with disabilities often cannot find or access the type of care they want when they are pregnant, and they are often mistreated. Indigenous and Black patients are more likely to be shouted at, scolded, ignored, or threatened. Many community members said that they felt more respected, heard, and included when they had a midwife and/or could stay in their community for birth. People want health systems to track, prevent, and respond to harms, injustice, and mistreatment. They want more reliable information about their options for care, and education for providers on their right to lead decisions about their own bodies. Mostly, they want culturally safe, respectful care. Community members helped us to design new tools that people can use to rate their experiences of care. We developed a course for doctors, nurses, and midwives on how to include the patient in decisions; and an online system that rates hospitals on whether they are ready to change. These tools and courses are ready to be used across Canada. Our team includes Indigenous and settler midwives, and health care providers and researchers, and trainees who are themselves racialized, queer, or live with disabilities. We know how to provide inclusive, accessible, respectful perinatal services. Through our Hub, we will work with families to choose the models of care, and tools they want to spread, and to discover or design new strategies to improve experience of care for all families.