Socioethical issues in Hospital Birth: Troubling Tales from a Canadian Sample

Abstract

Prior to the writing of this article, a small qualitative Canadian study surveyed prenatal counseling in a hospital setting; through that study, unexpected and disturbing narratives emerged from participants about their labors and deliveries. The absence of prenatal counseling and consent, in some cases, led to psychosocial trauma, perpetuated by false assumptions participants made about the safety of hospital birth. These were findings in a university-college-educated sample that had unique access to excellent health care through a wide variety of quality university teaching hospitals. This sample demonstrated alarming gaps in knowledge about the realities of hospital birth and, more generally, prenatal care in a hospital setting. This article focuses on these hospital birth narratives and discusses them in a sociological and ethical context. The findings point to further study in urban U.S. settings, with a larger, more diversely educated sample, to determine whether these findings are unique to the Canadian health-care system, unique to a more educated sample of women, or more universal, pointing to a broader need for obstetrical care reform.