Prejudice and misogyny are impacting maternity care | Letters

Readers respond to the findings of the Ockenden inquiry, which revealed that more than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care in Nottingham Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett asks why women are so routinely ignored in their maternity care (Belittled, ignored or gaslit – now we know the true cost of not listening to pregnant women, 25 June). Our research on formal reports about women’s poor maternity care identifies various reasons why women are not listened to, and they all start with their accounts being given less credibility because of prejudices held against them. Gender-based prejudices carry disturbing echoes of historical patriarchal assumptions and myths about the mysteries of female bodies. They lead to women being perceived as anxious, hysterical or irrational, and can result in their symptoms being dismissed as psychological rather than physical, if they are taken account of at all. This gender bias is compounded for Black and other ethnically non-white women by racial stereotypes. One of these, the belief that women from particular ethnic groups have higher or lower levels of pain tolerance, has the same outcome – inaccurate, mistimed or missing