Giving Voice to Mothers (Vedam et al., 2019)
1 in 6 women mistreated. Hospital rate 5.5x higher than home.
1 in 6 US women (17.3%) report mistreatment during maternity care. In hospitals: 28.1%. At home: 5.1%. 8.5% shouted at. 4.5% threatened with withheld treatment or forced procedures.
Vedam and colleagues at UBC ran the largest survey of US maternity-care mistreatment to date. The 2019 paper covered 2,138 women who had given birth in the previous three years. Across the full sample, 17.3 percent reported being mistreated by a provider, which works out to roughly one in six. The hospital-versus-home gap was striking.
Women who gave birth in hospitals reported a 28.1 percent mistreatment rate. Women who gave birth at home reported 5.1 percent.
The 5.5x gap is not explained by who chooses home birth, because the study controlled for demographics and risk factors. The specific behaviors reported included being shouted at (8.5 percent), being threatened with withheld treatment (4.5 percent), being ignored when asking for help, and having procedures performed without consent. The paper is one of the most-cited US sources on maternal mistreatment.
17.3%
Reported mistreatment, full sample
28.1%
Hospital births
5.1%
Home births
2,138
Women in the sample
Why it matters
Mistreatment is not a rare-edge-case phenomenon. One in six US mothers report it, and the rate in hospitals is more than five times the rate in homes.
This is one finding from the research library behind How to Birth a Mother. Everything here traces back to a study, a dataset, or a systematic review.