Following this lesson, learners will be able to:

• Define obstetric violence
• List 2 to 4 defining attributes of obstetric violence
• Understand that obstetric violence occurs as a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviors

Our Guest

Lorraine Garcia is a dual board certified Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM). She has an extensive background in clinical practice, education, and research. Her past involvement in women’s and maternal health began prior to becoming a career change nurse. Lorraine’s first graduate degree is a MA in Sociology, and she worked in research and field studies to better identify causes and disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality in New York City. Lorraine is currently a PhD Candidate in the College of Nursing at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus with her research focused on obstetric violence as a complex, structural and interpersonal problem that is embedded in the US maternity care system. Lorraine continues to work as a CNM while completing her PhD program. Her work also includes mentoring, teaching, and clinical training for advanced practice nurses, medical students, and resident physicians from Obstetrics and Gynecology and Family Medicine.

Lorraine’s point of view on the systemic, normalized abuse and mistreatment of childbearing people is aligned with advocacy workers, interdisciplinary scientists, and stakeholders who believe in “naming and claiming” the issue of obstetric violence so that we can be successful at understanding and dismantling the problem. She uses a systems approach and complexity theory as framing tools that provide solutions for elevating inquiry beyond the level of the individual. Her arguments are aligned with other researchers who believe that a multilevel, systems view is where the interrelationships among sociocultural constructions, power differentials, the normalization of routines, and unintended consequences produced by institutionalized systems can be examined and corrected.

Nerd Alert!

This module is dense and you may find you need to break it up into parts to watch, or watch more than once. If there are terms or concepts you’d like to see in a glossary for this module, please let us know at birthmonopoly@gmail.com.

The List of References is located below, in the “Downloads for this Lesson” menu.