Disability justice and collective access to labour and delivery care: a qualitative study

People with disabilities experience perinatal health disparities. This qualitative study examines disabled people’s experiences of labour and delivery care from a disability justice lens.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted between July 2019 and February 2020 with 31 women and transgender people aged 18–45 years with physical, sensory, and/or intellectual/developmental disabilities, who were living in in Ontario, Canada and had given birth in the previous five years.

People with disabilities described negative experiences of provider-driven, disrespectful, and discriminatory labour and delivery care that can be interpreted as examples of disability injustice and obstetric ableism. People with disabilities also described positive experiences of collaborative, respectful, and disability-affirming labour and delivery care that can be interpreted as examples of disability justice, facilitated by what feminist disability justice scholars and activists call collective access.

Collective access to labour and delivery care can improve perinatal health care for people with disabilities and promote disability justice. Reimagining care-related decision-making as an interdependent, collaborative, respectful, and disability-affirming process shared between patients and providers can help to facilitate collective access to labour and delivery care.