“You think, like, you’re neutral but you’re not”: a mixed- methods study of racial/ethnic bias in pain assessment, management and treatment in maternal and newborn care in the Netherlands

The results of this study provide a starting point to investigate racial and ethnic inequity in maternal and newborn care in the Netherlands, and to address the ways that these differences can be mitigated. Our findings underscore the disavowal of the role of racial thinking and notions of ethnic differences in pain assessment, management, and treatment, and highlights the need for critical reflection on the role of maternal and newborn care in shaping, causing, maintaining, sustaining, and (re)producing racial/ethnic inequity.