This research explores migrant women\u2019s experiences of maternity care within the NHS in three areas: Leeds, Manchester, and Kirklees.\u00a0 When discussing my project, I\u2019m often asked, \u2018Why these three areas\u2019?\u00a0 In fact, why focus on specific locations at all?\u00a0\u00a0 Why not extend the project to the entirety of England?<\/p>\n
Broadly speaking, we should not assume that migrants\u2019 experiences will be roughly uniform across one country.\u00a0 To the contrary, it is in their local neighbourhoods, towns, and cities, that migrants go about their daily lives, make friends and allies, and resist the policies and institutions that exclude them from full participation in the UK.\u00a0\u00a0 Local government and civil society can influence attitudes towards, and services available to, migrants.\u00a0 My PhD research, which focused on migrant women\u2019s activism in Manchester and Sheffield, found that each city offered particular resources, and presented particular obstacles, for the women with whom I worked.<\/p>\n
With regard to migrant women\u2019s experiences of maternity care, there are a few reasons to believe that the local might play an important role.\u00a0 First of all, the NHS has become increasingly decentralized, especially since the passage of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.\u00a0 \u00a0Local Clinical Commissioning Groups<\/a> are responsible for managing the NHS budget for an area, \u2018purchasing\u2019 services from different secondary providers.\u00a0 In 2016, control of the health and social care budget<\/a> for Greater Manchester was devolved to the Greater Manchester Combined authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n Secondly, migrant women\u2019s experiences of maternity care within the NHS may be influenced by the support they get from their friends and neighbours, and local charities and civil society organisations.\u00a0 Befriending schemes, special midwifery teams for migrants, and the availability of antenatal classes, may all affect how migrant women experience maternity care.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Each town and city has its own services and support groups, and it will be useful to look at the impact of various services, and consider how the most beneficial can be expanded to other regions.<\/p>\n Finally, each city and town has its own specific histories, culture(s), and institutions, and it\u2019s interesting to think about how these effect not only the particular services available to pregnant migrants, but also the wider \u2018atmosphere\u2019 in which migrants are living.\u00a0 Is the area in question multicultural and diverse, where a pregnant migrant might encounter broadly friendly attitudes?\u00a0 Or is it an area where a migrant woman might feel isolated and unsupported?\u00a0 Something as simple as the availability of familiar food might make a big difference to a pregnant migrant \u2013 and might depend on the neighbourhood in which she is living.<\/p>\n Manchester, Leeds, and Kirklees are all really interesting places to explore these sorts of issues.\u00a0 As mentioned, Greater Manchester Combined Authority has control over its own health and social care budget, and I want to look at whether this has an influence over how migrant women in Manchester experience NHS maternity services.\u00a0 Furthermore, Manchester has a long history of migration and a wide range of organisations offering support to migrant mothers.\u00a0 Leeds similarly has a history of migration, and several organisations that provide support to refugees and asylum-seekers in particular.\u00a0 Critically, for this project, Leeds is also the birthplace [pardon the pun] of the City of Sanctuary Maternity Stream<\/a>, which campaigns for better maternity services for \u2018women seeking sanctuary\u2019, and supports women in accessing these services.\u00a0 \u00a0This project will explore how these histories of migration, and the availability of third sector support, influence migrant women\u2019s experiences of maternity care.<\/p>\n Kirklees is less urban than either Manchester or Leeds \u2013 the borough boundaries include a large town (Huddersfield), and some smaller towns and villages. \u00a0Some parts of the borough are very diverse and have a significant migrant population, while in other parts, the population is almost entirely white British.\u00a0 \u00a0As my past research projects have largely been based in cities, I am very interested in learning more about the experiences of migrants in towns and villages, especially in those villages where there may be very few migrants.<\/p>\n As fieldwork for this project progresses, it is already clear that the presence of support networks, whether made up of family and friends, or accessed through local charities and self-help groups, play an important role in pregnant migrants\u2019 access to, and experiences of, maternity care.\u00a0 I am looking forward to further exploring the impact of the local environment on pregnant migrants\u2019 experiences, and am hopeful that the pandemic will soon be controlled enough to permit in-person research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This research explores migrant women\u2019s experiences of maternity care within the NHS in three areas: Leeds, Manchester, and Kirklees.\u00a0 When discussing my project, I\u2019m often asked, \u2018Why these three areas\u2019?\u00a0 In fact, why focus on specific locations at all?\u00a0\u00a0 Why not extend the project to the entirety of England? Broadly speaking, we should not assume […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1170,"featured_media":0,"parent":143,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-145","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions\/146"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/migrant-women-mat-care\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}