Learning from the Implementation of Disability-Inclusive Maternity Care: A Scoping Review.

Background/

Objectives

A growing body of evidence has revealed the multifaceted barriers populations with disabilities face during pregnancy and postpartum. This scoping review aimed to synthesize the literature on the implementation of disability-inclusive maternity care services for patients with disabilities.

Methods

PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, PsycInfo were sourced for literature between January 2013 and July 2025. Articles were eligible for inclusion in the review if they reported on the implementation of interventions that aimed to improve quality of maternity care for pregnant or postpartum patients with physical, sensory, intellectual, mental impairments. In total, 6279 studies were screened to yield a final sample of 13 eligible articles. Key characteristics and implementation outcomes were extracted and synthesized from each eligible article.

Results

Three of the studies targeted populations with physical impairments, five targeted populations with intellectual impairments, and five focused on populations with mental impairments. A variety of interventions were employed to improve the quality of care, targeting functional referral systems (n = 4), competent and motivated human resources (n = 4), actionable information systems (n = 3), effective communication (n = 1), and evidence-based practices (n = 1). Eligible studies reported acceptability (n = 11), adoption (n = 7), fidelity (n = 2), and penetration (n = 1) outcomes. The interventions generally reported high acceptability among providers and patients and emphasized the importance of participatory development and phased introduction.

Conclusions

Significant gaps in the evidence remain across all categories of impairments. Additional research is needed to understand what types of interventions can be effectively implemented to improve the quality of maternity care for pregnant and postpartum patients with disabilities.