Precarious perinatal care: experiences of incarcerated individuals in Ontario, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Incarcerated pregnant individuals face substantial barriers to timely and appropriate perinatal care, which may contribute to poorer maternal and newborn health outcomes compared to the general population. Their experiences, both during incarceration and post-release, offer critical insight into systemic obstacles affecting access to care. This study explores the perspectives of individuals who were pregnant while incarcerated in Ontario, Canada, examining their perinatal experiences and the factors contributing to adverse health outcomes for them and their newborns. METHODS: We undertook a qualitative study employing a descriptive design. We conducted virtual, semi-structured interviews with individuals who previously experienced incarceration while pregnant. Participants were recruited through purposeful and snowball sampling, and were eligible to participate if they had experienced incarceration in Ontario, Canada while pregnant. We conducted individual interviews to ensure confidentiality and encourage open discussions. We used thematic analysis to guide our identification and development of themes and subthemes. RESULTS: Eight participants were interviewed. Precarious perinatal care was identified as an overarching theme, encapsulating the instability and systemic challenges of perinatal care in carceral settings. Five main themes were identified: Carceral constraints to health and social supports, Mistreatment, Crystallization of pregnancy, (Im)personal care of pregnancy, and Parenting from the inside out. Participants described how power dynamics within carceral facilities affected access to perinatal care, expressed concerns about their own and their child's health, and shared fears about reintegration post-release. CONCLUSION: Participants described their perinatal experiences during incarceration, providing insight into the systemic and multifaceted barriers they encountered. This study enhances understanding of the complexities surrounding perinatal care access, illustrating how administrative processes and power dynamics within carceral facilities limit timely and appropriate care. These findings can inform the development of policies, procedures, and transitional resources during incarceration and post-release. Such interventions may improve perinatal experiences and contribute to better health outcomes for incarcerated pregnant individuals and their infants. Future research should explore perinatal care from the perspective of correctional officers working with incarcerated pregnant individuals. Additionally, examining policies governing carceral health and social service provision would help inform evidence-based reforms and improve care delivery.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.020 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".