One in eight pregnant people in Ontario has a disability, but many face barriers to accessible care and disrespect from health-care providers, a new report published Tuesday says. People with disabilities have been overlooked in reproductive health care partly because of false societal assumptions that they aren't sexual and won't have children, Hilary Brown, lead author of the report and an adjunct scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, said in an interview. The researchers examined health records of pregnant people in Ontario between 2010 and 2020, including data from almost 150,000 births to people with physical, sensory and developmental disabilities.
That data showed women with disabilities were more likely to visit the emergency department or be admitted to hospital during pregnancy than women who didn't have a disability. "[What] emergency department visits in pregnancy usually tell us is that there's some sort of gap, you know, that could have potentially been addressed with a person's primary-care [provider] or obstetrician," Brown said. The researchers also interviewed more than 60 people with disabilities, health-care and service providers.
WATCH | Childbirth with cerebral palsy: Christine Lumilan has cerebral palsy. At 39, she gave birth to her son, Dawson. 5 years ago Duration 2:30 Lumilan gave birth to Dawson with support from the Accessible Care Pregnancy Clinic at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
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