Pregnancy, Birth, and Infant Outcomes Among Women Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Including the Excluded in Antenatal Care: A Systematic Review of Concerns for D/deaf Pregnant Women

“…As shown in Table 1 , out of the three studies available that assessed issues of antenatal care among D/deaf pregnant women in the United States of America, two studies [ 31 , 32 ] used a retrospective cohort study approach, while the other [ 33 ] employed a quantitative research approach for data collection. The three other studies included and shown in Table 1 employed a mixed method research approach [ 34 ], a qualitative research approach [ 20 ], and a case report [ 35 ], respectively.…”

“…Overall, a total of 2105 D/deaf pregnant women participated in the included studies. Among all, the retrospective studies [ 31 , 32 ] had more D/deaf patients who attended antenatal clinics. Mitra et al [ 31 ] included 1385 in their study, while a total of 645 D/deaf women were included in the article by Schiff, Doody, Crane, and Mueller [ 32 ].…”

“…Among all, the retrospective studies [ 31 , 32 ] had more D/deaf patients who attended antenatal clinics. Mitra et al [ 31 ] included 1385 in their study, while a total of 645 D/deaf women were included in the article by Schiff, Doody, Crane, and Mueller [ 32 ]. Forty-two D/deaf pregnant women participated in the study by [ 34 ], while only nine D/deaf pregnant women were interviewed in the study by Adigun and Mngomezulu [ 20 ].…”

“…Although the findings of Gichane, Heap, Fontes, and London [ 34 ] among 42 D/deaf pregnant women in the US were similar to what was observed by O’Hearn [ 33 ], Gichane, Heap, Fontes, and London [ 34 ] reported that there were limited sign language interpretation services at the hospitals visited by the study participants. More recent studies by Adigun and Mngomezulu [ 20 ] from Nigeria and Mitra et al [ 31 ] from the United States of America expressed the communication difficulties experienced by D/deaf pregnant women who were attending antenatal clinics. According to the study by Adigun and Mngomezulu [ 20 ], communication challenges were one of the major determinants of the use of antenatal services by D/deaf women.…”

“…In this study, the author elucidated issues that were capable of contributing to the exclusion of D/deaf pregnant women from quality antenatal care services. The authors found only six studies [ 20 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ] that assessed antenatal issues with a specific focus on D/deaf pregnant women as participants through a systematic search of four bibliographic four databases (PubMed, Scopus, Ebscohost, and Google Scholar).…”