Bournemouth University has published The human rights and dignity experience of disabled women during pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting . Commissioned by the charity Birthrights this interim report highlights how maternity care services may not be meeting the needs of some pregnant disabled women. The report follows a survey of women with physical or sensory impairment or long term health conditions which highlighted how despite most women rating the support they received from maternity health carers positively only 19% of women thought that reasonable adjustments or accommodations had been made for them. Some found birth rooms, postnatal wards and their maternity notes and scans “completely inaccessible”, while a quarter of women reported that they felt they were treated less favourably because of their disability. Most strikingly, more than half (56%) felt that health care providers did not have appropriate attitudes to disability.
Just over half of the participants expressed dissatisfaction with one or more care providers, particularly their awareness of the impact of disability and their perception that their choices in pregnancy and birth were being reduced or overruled.
