King's College London

This research aims to improve the maternity care experience of LGBTQ+ birthing people by helping midwives develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours they need to offer safe and inclusive care.

LGBTQ+ people often experience discrimination or negative treatment when they use healthcare services, and this can also happen during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. Many LGBTQ+ birthing people face extra stress because maternity services can assume that everyone is heterosexual or that a person’s gender always matches the sex they were assigned at birth. These assumptions, along with a lack of understanding about diverse families, can make maternity care feel unwelcoming or unsafe.

The project has two stages. Stage one will analyse data from the Birth Experience Study UK (BESt-UK), which gathers experiences from people who have given birth in the last five years. This analysis will be helpful to understand the specific experiences of LGBTQ+ people and their encounters with midwives during their maternity care. Alongside this, the study will explore what knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours midwives require to provide inclusive, affirming care.

Stage two will use insights from LGBTQ+ service users and midwives to co-design and test an online training package. This co-design approach aims to create practical, evidence-based education that supports midwives to deliver safer, more inclusive care for LGBTQ+ birthing people.