An Australian Dedicated Refugee Midwifery Group Practice: Exploring the impacts, outcomes and experiences of women and midwives

Women from a refugee background who resettle in high income countries experience poor perinatal outcomes in their new country. The poor outcomes are related to inadequately addressed complex needs, including women’s social, medical, and psychological needs, alongside barriers in communication and culturally unresponsive care. Therefore, providing quality, culturally responsive and accessible maternity care is fundamental to improve perinatal outcomes for women from a refugee background who resettle in high-income countries.

This doctoral research project will explore the impact of a dedicated Refugee Midwifery Group Practice (R-MGP) on maternal and neonatal outcomes. Using a convergent mixed methods design, the research project will include three components of data collection. The research project will compare pregnancy, birth, postnatal and neonatal outcomes for women from a refugee background who their care at a R-MGP with those who received standard care, explore the experiences and perceptions of women who received care at the R-MGP using focus group interviews and explore the experiences of staff who work at the R-MGP using face-to-face interviews.

This research has a potential to add knowledge on how a R-MGP service meets the unique needs of women from a refugee background and whether the service improves maternal and neonatal outcomes. The research also has a potential to identify strengths and challenges of the R-MGP from the perspective of women who use the service and staff who work at the service, which could help to identify factors that are important for future planning and implementation of maternity services that meet the needs of women from a refugee background. Lastly, if the R-MGP has measurable benefits compared to standard care, the research has a potential for providing guidance for replication of similar services across other urban areas of Australia