Pilot Study On Prenatal Health Care

A Saint John woman is seeking participants for a pilot study on prenatal health care.

Kate Ellis, a Master of Arts student at Royal Roads University, is completing the study as part of her thesis.

Ellis said women’s health, particularly health equity, is something she has always had an interest in.

“Right before I started my thesis, I had my daughter, which was wonderful, but it also exposed me to the prenatal health care system we have in Saint John and New Brunswick,” said Ellis.

“Seeing what I saw and hearing what some of my friends had experienced themselves, I thought it might be a good idea to explore it from a research perspective.”

In particular, Ellis said the study will look at access to prenatal health care, satisfaction, and potential areas of marginalization in care.

“I was really lucky that I had an amazing prenatal care provider, but I’m aware that not every person has that same kind of access that I did,” she said.

Ellis said even with knowledge of the health-care system, there were things she wishes she could have accessed.

“That made me think, ‘okay, people who don’t have the same kind of privileges I do, I wonder what their experiences are’ because I imagine there are definitely certain things we might be missing,” she said.

Ellis hopes to recruit 100 people for an online survey and about five to eight people for one-on-one interviews.

She noted there is no New Brunswick-specific research on the topic of prenatal health care.

“If there are findings that say these are areas that need improvement, that information can help inform the way health care is being provided,” said Ellis.

According to a post on the project’s Facebook page, you may be eligible to participate if you are currently pregnant or have been in the past two years, and you live in Greater Saint John and received your prenatal care in the area.

You can find more details by searching SJ Pregnancy Study on Facebook.