Perinatal experiences of resettled Syrian migrant women in Greece-a qualitative study

Background: Many women report that their privacy in hospitals was not respected and that their needs were totally ignored. A woman’s perinatal experience can be determinant for a woman’s life, introducing her into maternity either in a gentle way or causing her trauma. These findings can be used to improve health services in Greece.
Aim: To identify the positive and negative life experiences of refugee women giving birth in Greece.
Method: A qualitative interpretive design was used. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 14 Syrian women. The majority were refugees that gave birth in Greece and only four with birthing experience in both Syria and Greece. Data were detailed interpreted and analyzed thematically.
Results: “Numerous people were getting in and out of the room” emerged as one of the dominant themes, together with the communication difficulty due to the lack of translators. Women used the phrase “The main problem was the language’’ together with “I couldn’t ask for anything’’. Last but not least, women stated that the staff had racist behavior ‘’ Some of them, weren’t nice to me, they were racists’’. Another woman described “They made me feel inferior wearing my handkerchief’’. In addition to that, from this statement, it emerges that their religion had not been respected.
Conclusion: This study discusses the experiences that Syrian migrant women have to go through in public hospitals, due to lack of privacy during their stay, communication problems as well as staff’s racist behavior. Overall, all these reasons lead to a traumatic experience and a degraded healthcare system.