Legacies and Futures: Measuring Roles of Resilience and Vulnerability in Pregnancy and Birth Outcomes

Overview

Pregnancy care typically assumes patients are heterosexual married women whose gender matches their assigned sex (i.e., cisgender), stigmatizing patients and creating limitations, blocking affirming care. Consequently, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, intersex, asexual, and/or transgender (LGBTQIA+) parents face minority stress as discrimination in antenatal care. This mixed-methods study assesses stressors and resilience factors on pregnancy and birth outcomes. LGBTQIA+ pregnant parents (n=200) are case-matched with cisheterosexual peers (n=600). Primary data comes from two panel surveys, one antenatally and one postpartum, combined with medical records. A sub-sample (n=30) will complete a journal between surveys. Findings will inform care guidelines and provider training.

Patients using reproductive health services, like care during pregnancy (called antenatal care), are most often assumed to be heterosexual married women whose gender matched their sex assigned at birth (i.e., cisgender). Due to these assumptions, pregnancy care procedures are based on a sweeping assumption of who becomes pregnant and gives birth. This assumption is based on the pregnant person's gender and/or sexual orientation. As a result of this assumption, parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, intersex, asexual, non-binary, and/or transgender (LGBTQIA+) can experience stress in the form of stigma, prejudice, and discrimination (i.e. "minority stress"). In the United Kingdom, there are 525,000 LGBTQIA+ potential gestational patients who may face this type of stress while receiving pregnancy care. That means that there is a preventable higher risk for pregnancy and birth complications caused by increased stress during pregnancy and daily life. These complications include macrosomia, pre-term birth, and low-birth weight. Preventable stress, also called minority stress, links to this increase in health problems outside of pregnancy as well. Since minority stress influences patient/parents' health, it is also called a risk or vulnerability. Resilience, or the ability to overcome stress and discrimination, can sometimes help improve health outcomes. However, little is known about which types of resilience can be helpful for LGBTQIA+ parents given their unique experiences of minority stress. The planned observational study will investigate the ways in which experiences of minority stress and resilience in pregnancy care are associated with parent health and birth outcomes. A sample of pregnant patients (N=800) from maternity wards in and around London will take part through an online panel survey (completed twice) that will be linked to each patient/participant's electronic health records to create a quantitative dataset. Participant recruitment will focus on LGBTQIA+ pregnant patients (n=200). A matched comparison sample of cisgender, heterosexual pregnant patients (n=600) will also be recruited to take part from the same maternity. From the full sample, patient/parents from University College London Hospital will be invited to complete an at-home journal activity which will provide qualitative data on their experiences of minority stress and resilience. This smaller group (n=30). Results from this study can be used to inform LGBTQIA+ guidelines, training, and help make reproductive healthcare more inclusive.