Forced displacement has profound detrimental consequences on reproductive health, including maternal morbidity and mortality. Pregnant newcomers are a particularly high-risk group and are susceptible to adverse reproductive health outcomes due to the interplay of migration, sexual violence, trauma, disrupted care, racism, and xenophobia. Newcomers have higher rates of preventable pregnancy-related risk factors such as delayed prenatal care, malnutrition, and exposure to infectious diseases, in addition to structural, socioeconomic, language, and cultural barriers to accessing comprehensive pregnancy and abortion care. Perinatal mental health conditions are more prevalent among newcomers (particularly refugees and asylees), but they face greater barriers to accessing mental health care. In this perspective piece, we share two clinical cases that demonstrate how—at the intersection of reproductive justice and migrant justice—dismantling inequities in newcomer reproductive health requires interdisciplinary, trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and linguistically accessible care. We present best practices from an interdisciplinary model for newcomer pregnancy care. We end with a call to action for improving birth outcomes and experiences for newcomer patients.
Arce et al. (Thu,) studied this question.