What are the consequences of being mistreated by the healthcare system? That is the question we asked after reading a new study published last month in the journal JAMA Network Open. The study involved 4,458 postpartum individuals and found that “more than 1 in 8 individuals…reported experiencing mistreatment during childbirth.”

The most common form of mistreatment was being ignored or refused a request for help. Other types of mistreatment included “being shouted at or scolded” by healthcare clinicians and having healthcare clinicians threaten “to withhold treatment or force you to accept treatment that you did not want.” Factors that increased the chance of being mistreated during childbirth were being LGBTQ, Medicaid insured, unmarried, obese before pregnancy, having an unplanned cesarean birth, a history of substance use disorder, having experienced intimate partner or family violence, having a mood disorder, or giving birth during the pandemic. In 2019, The Giving........

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