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Definition

Obstetric Violence (Abuse during Childbirth or Disrespectful care) is generally defined as interactions/conditions deemed humiliating or undignified by local consensus and interactions/conditions experienced as or intended to be humiliating or undignifying. The 2010 Landscape Analysis defined 7 categories of abusive or disrespectful care including: physical abuse, non-consented clinical care, non-confidential care, non-dignified care, discrimination, abandonment, and detention in health facilities.

Intersectionality of Obstetric Violence

Race/ Ethnicity

While global maternal health research and advocacy has brought recent awareness to obstetric violence, historians have noted historical examples. In the United States of America, historians attest that it began during slavery, where enslaved women were physically exploited and experimented on by Antebellum physicians looking to advance the fields of obstetrics and gynaecology . Later, historians confirm that this took the form of forced sterilizations of black and other women of color as part of the eugenics movement . Mississippi appendectomies refers to the experience of forced and coerced sterilization of Black women between 1920 and 1980. Coined by activist Fannie Lou Hamer, Mississippi appendectomies involved Black and other women of color being sterilized without informed consent, knowledge and without valid medical reason. Hamer recalls having received a hysterectomy without consent during a surgery to remove a uterine fibroid, rendering her infertile. Researchers confirm that hysterectomies and tubal ligations were given to poor black women by medical residents allowed to "practice" surgical skills.

Scholars show that some of these historical forms of disrespectful care have persisted into the 21st century. Black mothers, regardless of socioeconomic status, including Serena Williams, have detailed experiences of being ignored or dismissed while reporting signs of complications or expressing concerns during their pregnancies . A study conducted on maternal and infant health inequalities in California, found that racial inequality in maternal and infant outcomes persits within the wealthiest 20% of families. The study concluded that Black mothers and infants were two times as likely to die than white mothers and infants within this tax bracket. The researchers also found that the rates of maternal mortality among the richest Black women were just as high among the lowest-income white women. Another study noted that women of color experience mistreatment more frequently than other races, with rates of mistreatment consistently higher for them when compared to white counterparts. Research from the New York State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy related complications, where more than 60% of these deaths are preventable if given appropriate and respectful care.

Though studies have found that the impacts of obstetric violence are disproportionately distributed, they also show it is not limited to black women alone. A study conducted during the 1970s found that an estimated 1/4 of Indigenous American women of childbearing age were sterilized in Indian Health Service hospitals.