Research Paper“How did that happen?” Public responses to women with mobility disability during pregnancy
Section snippets
Methods
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Partners HealthCare Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved this research. This study was part of a larger exploratory, mixed methods investigation of pregnancy among women with chronic mobility disability, which had 3 components: analyses of large survey data9, 10, 11; reviews of MGH obstetrical electronic medical records; and qualitative descriptive analyses of in-depth individual interviews, considering a range of topics.15 The IRB-approved use of
Results
Table 1 presents characteristics of the 22 interviewees. The vast majority were white, non-Hispanic, and well-educated; half had Medicaid insurance during their most recent pregnancy; and they came from 17 states nationwide. Eight had spinal cord injuries, 4 cerebral palsy, and the remainder had various other conditions. All women used assistive devices for mobility, 18 using wheeled mobility aids. Sixteen of the 22 women had at least one child three years of age or younger; all women had given
Discussion
Nearly all 22 women in this study described being accustomed to stares or comments from strangers because of their mobility disability. They have grown accustomed to handling or deflecting these public reactions, including by using humor, irony, and sarcasm. But when they became visibly pregnant or mothers of newborns, more than two-thirds of the women perceived new and different responses from the public. The interviewees saw that common thread as strangers viewing the co-occurrence of
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Cited by (0)
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development funded this study (Grant No. 1R21HD068756-02).