Bizarre, "distressing" survey given to new mums in hospital
A survey sent to Queensland mothers who had recently given birth at a Brisbane hospital has been slammed for its inappropriate and “distressing” questions.
Some of the questions asked mothers to rate their own behaviour during labour and if they had any fantasies of their newborns facing harm.
Two surveys went out to mothers who had given birth at the Mater hospital in Brisbane, one prior to the birth and one six weeks afterwards.
One question asked mothers to rate their experience, including “what happened when labour was most intense”, where they were given a scale of “I behaved extremely badly” to “I did not behave badly at all”.
Another question asked, “Had you, during the labour and delivery, had any fantasies that your child would die during labour/delivery?” where mothers could respond between “never” and “very often”.
In the surveys sent to mothers prior to delivery, they were asked to rate how they expected they’d behave during pregnancy.
The survey was part of the CERPA study and asked several questions.
The study explores the “CErebro Placental RAtio as (an) indicator for delivery following perception of reduced fetal movements”, according to an online entry.
The survey questions were originally written in Swedish and were translated to English.
A potential mistranslation has copped the blame for why the questions were so alarming.
“Mater recognises the English translation in some questions is unsuitable and regrets that this may have caused distress to respondents,” a spokesperson for Mater Hospital said.
One mother, Toni-Ann Drury, visited the Mater hospital toward the end of her pregnancy after she moved to Queensland.
She received a call from the hospital soon after visiting, where they asked her to answer questions via email.
“I had no idea that it was as part of a research program or anything like that,” she explained.
They informed her during the call she should expect more questions thrown her way six months after giving birth.
Drury described that the questions in both surveys were “distressing”.
“How do women behave badly during labour?" she said.
“I don’t think that labour and birth should be put in the same sentence as behaving badly.
“Women go through extreme pain and body changes and all that sort of stuff, so I don’t think that any woman should associate the way that they responded to pain with behaviour.
“The other questions were quite distressing in nature and the wording that was used.”
Drury added that the mistranslation explanation is not a good enough reason.
“I think Mater Hospital, as fantastic as they are, have a responsibility to the women that they’re providing services to,” she said.
“To protect them from the stuff that they are delivering, ultimately, because their name is on that email that is going out.”
The Maternity Consumer Network described the questions on the survey as “some of the worst, paternalistic, misogynistic, thoughtless BS we’ve ever seen asked of women”.
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