Health communication for Chinese migrant mothers in northern England – an explorative qualitative study (360G-Wellcome-202709_Z_16_Z)

This study intends to make a contribution to researching the provision of maternal service to Chinese migrant mothers which is currently lacking in the health research literature. It explores mothers’ own accounts of their experiences of healthcare including health communication, and midwives experiences of providing care and health related information to Chinese migrant mothers. This in-depth qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with mothers and midwives as well as ethnographic observations of midwife appointments in Leeds and Manchester. It aims to explore how mothers’ socio-cultural values intersect with the dominant set of ideas and practices of managing pregnancy, birth and neonatal care in the British society often manifested in the ‘intensive motherhood’ discourse. More specifically it investigates what dominant (e.g. regular exercise during pregnancy; breastfeeding) and alternative health messages (birth choices) are available to Chinese migrant mothers, how mothers (dis)engage with these messages based on their material and socio-cultural underpinnings, what are the sources of information, how they evaluate the provision of health information and what are the potential areas of improvement in the maternal service.