Civility and Inclusion

Socioeconomic deprivation and minority ethnic background are risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes. We aimed to quantify the magnitude of these socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities at the population level in England.

Dr Mary Ross-Davie, Director for Professional Midwifery at the RCM and Victoria Komolafe, the RCM’s Professional Digital Advisor, look at two recent reports highlighting the huge inequities in outcomes in maternity care in the UK for women from ethnic minorities and those who live with poverty.

Some gender-based disparities in medicine may relate to pregnancy and parenthood. An understanding of the challenges faced by pregnant physicians and physician parents is needed to design policies and interventions to reduce these disparities.
Our objective was to characterize work-related barriers related to pregnancy and parenthood described by physicians.

Workplace legal protections are important for perinatal health outcomes. Black birthing people are disproportionally affected by pregnancy discrimination and bias in the employment context and lack of family-friendly workplace policies, which may hinder their participation in the labor force and lead to gender and racial inequities in income and health. We aimed to explore Black pregnant women's experiences of pregnancy discrimination and bias when looking for work, working while pregnant, and returning to work postpartum. Additionally, we explored Black pregnant women's perspectives on how these experiences may influence their health.

Most women and pregnant people are physiologically able and desire to breastfeed, however, they face substantial barriers. Effective interventions address health systems, workplace policies, and engage communities and families. However, substantial work remains to implement fully supportive policies across multiple social sectors. Urgent action is needed to limit the pervasive influence of commercial milk formula (CMF) marketing in policy, healthcare, and on families to achieve more equitable outcomes.

Poor lifestyle practices, combined with excess weight gain and weight retention during the preconception, pregnancy and postpartum periods can increase health risks for mothers and their children. Little is known about how workplaces impact the health and well-being of women of child-bearing age, particularly across work roles and settings. This qualitative descriptive study explored the enablers and barriers to the healthy lifestyle practices and well-being of women of reproductive age within an Australian community services organisation by capturing the perspectives of both the women and workplace executives.

Breastfeeding can be affected by maternal employment. This is important considering that in 2019, 47.1% of women globally participated in the labor force. The aim of this study was to review workplace interventions to promote, protect and support breastfeeding practices among working mothers globally.