Trust, Vacillation ad Neglect: <i>Refugee women’s experiences regarding pregnancy and birth giving in Finland</i>

Abstract

The paper analyses how refugee women experience pregnancy and childbirth in interaction with professionals. The narrative analysis identifies three storylines: one about 'good' experiences and emphasizing satisfaction; another about dramatic experiences and disappointments with maternity care; a third about tragic experiences as a result of failures of the maternity care system. Building on the theorizing on the relevance of trust and confidence in salutogenic theory, the analysis concludes that all women, regardless of how they interpret their experiences, value reciprocal relationships with care providers. Social recognition as an equal partner in care helps women to overcome difficult experiences related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Humanitarian migrant women's experiences of maternity care in Nordic countries: A systematic integrative review of qualitative research

“…The studies that stated their participants" precise ethnicity or country of birth reported them originating from 29 different countries. Of these countries, the largest representation was in Somalia (Garnweidner et al 2013;Degni et al 2014;Lillrank 2015;Byrskog et al 2016;Carlsson et al 2016;Glavin & Saeteren 2016;Barkensjö et al 2018;Hjelm et al 2018), Afghanistan (Garndweidner et al 2013;Lillrank 2015;Barkensjö et al 2018), and Morocco (Robertson 2015;Barkensjö et al 2018;Hjelm et al 2018). The distribution of all of the study participants" reported countries of origin shared as to follow in Table 4.…”

“…Five studies were conducted in Sweden (Robertson 2015;Byrskog et al 2016;Carlsson et al 2016;Barkensjö et al 2018;Hjelm et al 2018), three in Norway (Garnweidner et al 2013;;Viken et al 2015;Glavin &Saeteren 2016), andtwo in Finland (Degni et al 2014;Lillrank 2015). Other Nordic countries were not represented in the articles that met all of the inclusion criteria.…”

“…Six of the reviewed studies had their focus in humanitarian migrant women"s general experiences on maternal health and maternity care in their new home country (Lillrank 2015;Robertson 2015;Degni et al 2014;Glavin & Saeteren 2016;Barkensjö et al 2018). Four, on the other hand, had narrowed the study"s focus on a specific theme within the phenomenon of maternity care: Byrskog and colleagues (2016)…”

Street-Level Engagements: <i>Migrated Families Encountering the Local Welfare State</i>

“…Annika Lillrank (2015) explores refugee background women's experiences of pregnancy and birth giving in interaction with Finnish maternity care professionals. She departs from salutogenic theory in her analysis of interviews with twelve women, maintaining that cultural-sensitive practice as such does not establish trust between refugee-background women and maternity care professionals.…”

“…Only then can members of society 'interact with each other as peers' (Fraser 2013: 164). A joint conclusion of the studies, having looked at refugees as well as other categories of migrants, is that the welfare state to some extent caters for income redistribution while the redistribution of power and knowledge remains weak (Bredström & Gruber 2015;Heino & Veistilä 2015;Intke-Hernandes & Holm 2015, Lillrank 2015Nordberg 2015).…”