Abstract:Respectful and inclusive maternal healthcare is globally acknowledged as a key health indicator. However, social factors such as cultural background, immigration status and race are widely recognized as core barriers to maternal health access and positive outcomes. Among these social factors, language is considered a marker of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Thus, language is identified as one of the most significant barriers to respectful healthcare access, particularly among immigrants. Canada is a country with a long tradition of welcoming immigrants and promoting immigration policies that encourage the arrival of newcomers from all over the world. However, this positive attitude is not always consistent with immigrants’ experiences navigating the health system. The Research Examining the Stories of Pregnancy and Childbearing in Canada Today (RESPCCT) is a Canada-wide survey with over 200 questions designed through Community Participatory Action Research (CPAR) methods. This project, led by the UBC Birthplace Lab (UBC-BPL), studies the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth care among more than 6,000 participants from diverse cultures, races, and with different lengths of time living in Canada who gave birth between 2010 and 2020 in the country. This presentation shares the preliminary results of an ongoing analysis of the experiences of non-English and non-French immigrant responders of the RESPCCT study. Through thematic analysis inspired by constructivist social theories, we review participants’ open-ended responses. Participant selection occurred by choosing the higher scores of respect (MOR), autonomy (MDAM), and mistreatment (MIST-7) tools* among immigrant responders. From there, we examine the participant’s positive experiences and explore how mother tongues interplay with a) cultural safety, b) informed consent access, c) non-verbal communication, d) verbal communication from care providers, e) supportive behaviours, and f) conditions of treatment. *Scales and Index developed by the BPL based on its own generated research evidence (Vedam et al. 2018).
Keywords: Migration and Health, Inclusive maternity care, immigrants in Canada, Cultural Safety, racial equity, women”™s health, reproductive justice, discrimination in maternal health
