IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v9y2019i2p45-d238454.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Negotiating Patient-Provider Power Dynamics in Distinct Childbirth Settings: Insights from Black American Mothers

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel West

    (Department of Sociology, College of Liberal and Fine Arts, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA)

  • John P. Bartkowski

    (Department of Sociology, College of Liberal and Fine Arts, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA)

Abstract

Several studies have examined women’s perceptions and experiences of out-of-hospital births, that is, births that take place at home or in birthing centers overseen by midwives. However, White women have primarily been the subject of these investigations. Black women are underrepresented among mothers who have out-of-hospital births, yet they provide an intriguing case for this birthing practice, given their elevated maternal mortality rates and the general rise in home and birth-center births since 2005. This study utilizes a split-sample design to compare the experiences of Black American women who gave birth in out-of-hospital and within-hospital settings in San Antonio, Texas. San Antonio is an excellent site for such an inquiry, as Black women are a decided racial minority in this Latino-dominated city, and often face healthcare access challenges. Drawing on insights from theories of intersectionality and power, this study uses in-depth interviews to explore how patient-provider power asymmetries emerge and are negotiated by Black American mothers who have out-of-hospital births, in contrast to their hospital-birthing peers. Narratives reveal that patient-provider power relations and asymmetries exist both within and outside of hospital settings, but are distinctly manifested in each setting. Out-of-hospital births are more mother-centered, but power machinations are more covert in such settings. Participants employ various forms of resistance to negotiate asymmetrical relationships with providers.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel West & John P. Bartkowski, 2019. "Negotiating Patient-Provider Power Dynamics in Distinct Childbirth Settings: Insights from Black American Mothers," Societies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-21, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:9:y:2019:i:2:p:45-:d:238454
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/45/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/45/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geronimus, A.T. & Hicken, M. & Keene, D. & Bound, J., 2006. ""Weathering" and age patterns of allostatic load scores among blacks and whites in the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(5), pages 826-833.
    2. Paula Braveman & Katherine Heck & Susan Egerter & Tyan Parker Dominguez & Christine Rinki & Kristen S Marchi & Michael Curtis, 2017. "Worry about racial discrimination: A missing piece of the puzzle of Black-White disparities in preterm birth?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Sabin, J.A. & Greenwald, A.G., 2012. "The influence of implicit bias on treatment recommendations for 4 common pediatric conditions: Pain, urinary tract infection, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(5), pages 988-995.
    4. Colen, C.G. & Geronimus, A.T. & Bound, J. & James, S.A., 2006. "Maternal upward socioeconomic mobility and Black-White disparities in infant birthweight," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(11), pages 2032-2039.
    5. Viisainen, Kirsi, 2001. "Negotiating control and meaning: home birth as a self-constructed choice in Finland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1109-1121, April.
    6. Annandale, Ellen C., 1987. "Dimensions of patient control in a free-standing birth center," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 25(11), pages 1235-1248, January.
    7. Smedley, B.D., 2012. "The lived experience of race and its health consequences," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(5), pages 933-935.
    8. Rosenthal, Lisa & Lobel, Marci, 2011. "Explaining racial disparities in adverse birth outcomes: Unique sources of stress for Black American women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 977-983, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tuyet-Mai H. Hoang & Ainslee Wong, 2022. "Exploring the Application of Intersectionality as a Path toward Equity in Perinatal Health: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-25, December.
    2. Tuyet-Mai H. Hoang & Wan-Jung Hsieh & B. Andi Lee & Kaylee Marie Lukacena & Karen M. Tabb, 2022. "Navigating Pregnancy and the Healthcare System during COVID-19: A Qualitative Study with Perinatal Women of Color," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-13, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arline Geronimus & John Bound & Annie Ro, 2014. "Residential Mobility Across Local Areas in the United States and the Geographic Distribution of the Healthy Population," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 777-809, June.
    2. Rosenthal, Lisa & Lobel, Marci, 2011. "Explaining racial disparities in adverse birth outcomes: Unique sources of stress for Black American women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(6), pages 977-983, March.
    3. Anders Larrabee Sonderlund & Antoinette Schoenthaler & Trine Thilsing, 2021. "The Association between Maternal Experiences of Interpersonal Discrimination and Adverse Birth Outcomes: A Systematic Review of the Evidence," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-31, February.
    4. Nepomnyaschy, Lenna, 2010. "Race disparities in low birth weight in the U.S. south and the rest of the nation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 684-691, March.
    5. Colen, Cynthia G. & Ramey, David M. & Cooksey, Elizabeth C. & Williams, David R., 2018. "Racial disparities in health among nonpoor African Americans and Hispanics: The role of acute and chronic discrimination," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 167-180.
    6. Alice Goisis & Wendy Sigle-Rushton, 2014. "Childbearing Postponement and Child Well-being: A Complex and Varied Relationship?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1821-1841, October.
    7. Tiedje, LindaBeth & Holzman, Claudia B. & De Vos, Eric & Jia, Xu & Korzeniewski, Steve & Rahbar, Mohammad H. & Goble, Monica M. & Kallen, David, 2008. "Hostility and anomie: Links to preterm delivery subtypes and ambulatory blood pressure at mid-pregnancy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(6), pages 1310-1321, March.
    8. David H Chae & Sean Clouston & Mark L Hatzenbuehler & Michael R Kramer & Hannah L F Cooper & Sacoby M Wilson & Seth I Stephens-Davidowitz & Robert S Gold & Bruce G Link, 2015. "Association between an Internet-Based Measure of Area Racism and Black Mortality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-12, April.
    9. Suzan L Carmichael & Mark R Cullen & Jonathan A Mayo & Jeffrey B Gould & Pooja Loftus & David K Stevenson & Paul H Wise & Gary M Shaw, 2014. "Population-Level Correlates of Preterm Delivery among Black and White Women in the U.S," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-6, April.
    10. Sirois, Catherine, 2020. "The strain of sons' incarceration on mothers’ health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    11. Hill, Terrence D. & Ellison, Christopher G. & Burdette, Amy M. & Taylor, John & Friedman, Katherine L., 2016. "Dimensions of religious involvement and leukocyte telomere length," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 168-175.
    12. Alice Goisis & Melissa Martinson & Wendy Sigle, 2019. "When richer doesn’t mean thinner: Ethnicity, socioeconomic position, and the risk of child obesity in the United Kingdom," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(23), pages 649-678.
    13. Cassandra Robertson & Rourke O’Brien, 2018. "Health Endowment at Birth and Variation in Intergenerational Economic Mobility: Evidence From U.S. County Birth Cohorts," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 249-269, February.
    14. Mullahy, John, 2024. "Analyzing health outcomes measured as bounded counts," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    15. Brown, Laura J & Sear, Rebecca, 2020. "Do parenting, reproductive and health traits cluster together in distinct trajectories? Evidence from two UK cohort studies," OSF Preprints r8jvw, Center for Open Science.
    16. Matthews, Karen A. & Schwartz, Joseph E. & Cohen, Sheldon, 2011. "Indices of socioeconomic position across the life course as predictors of coronary calcification in black and white men and women: Coronary artery risk development in young adults study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(5), pages 768-774, September.
    17. Warren Kealy-Bateman & Georgina M. Gorman & Adam P. Carroll, 2021. "Patient/Consumer Codesign and Coproduction of Medical Curricula: A Possible Path Toward Improved Cultural Competence and Reduced Health Disparity," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, June.
    18. Touma, Fatima & Hummer, Robert A., 2022. "Race/ethnicity, immigrant generation, and physiological dysregulation among U.S. adults entering midlife," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    19. Lee, Shih-Yu & Hsu, Hui-Chin, 2012. "Stress and health-related well-being among mothers with a low birth weight infant: The role of sleep," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(7), pages 958-965.
    20. Thompson, Owen, 2011. "Racial disparities in the cognition-health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 328-339, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:9:y:2019:i:2:p:45-:d:238454. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.