birthing

Drs. Cynthia Salter, Judy Chang, and Dara Mendez collaborated on a qualitative analysis exploring American clinician perspectives on patient birth experiences looking at birth trauma and mistreatment. This study contributes new insight into maternity clinicians' conceptualization of patient trauma and how their descriptions of birth trauma overlap with mistreatment. Clinicians implicitly connected mistreatment with some patient experiences of birth trauma, even when they were not specifically asked about mistreatment.

Dr. Ashley Hill and her team examined literature on measures of racial discrimination used in preterm birth research and found that assessment methods and application of constructs varied. This synthesis shows significant challenges to understanding associations between racial discrimination and preterm birth, which ultimately hinders development of effective intervention.
 

Looking at Dr. Dara Mendez, Dr. Esa Davis, and their team's study on stress trends throughout pregnancy and postpartum, the COVID-19 pandemic may have adverse implications for birthing populations in the U.S.