Immigrant women's perspective on prenatal and postpartum care: systematic review

Female migration represents a major public health challenge faced today because its heterogeneity and gender issues placing immigrant women among the most vulnerable and at-risk group. To identify and analyze studies dealing with immigrant women's perspectives with prenatal and postpartum health care. A systematic literature review was conducted to assess studies published between 2000 and 2010 using Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, EMBASE, PubMed and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The studies explored the relation between socio-demographic characteristics of immigrant women participants and its impact on the main factors identified as influencing prenatal and postpartum care, characterizing the manifested knowledge and behaviors expressed and describing the women's experience with health care services and the incidence of postpartum depression symptoms. The less favorable socio-economic status of migrant women participants seems to have been influential in the quality of health service in prenatal and postpartum periods. The language barrier was the main negative factor interfering with communication between women and health professionals, followed by health care professionals' lack of cultural sensitivity, leading to women's reluctance in using health services.