The National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) at the University of Oxford is facilitating a Priority Setting Partnership in the area of LGBTQIA+ perinatal care, in partnership with the James Lind Alliance, LGBT Mummies, Transparent Change, LGBT Foundation and UK Mutual Aid. The Project lead is BAPM member Dr Ilana Levene.
LGBTQIA+ people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and asexual. Many LGBTQIA+ people want to be pregnant and give birth, or want to support their partner or a surrogate to be pregnant and give birth. About 1 in 20 pregnant people are LGBTQIA+, and this is likely to increase with better access to NHS assisted reproduction for lesbian women as part of the Department of Health Women's Health Strategy.
The partnership are inviting people that identify as LGBTQIA+, as well as healthcare professionals that look after LGBTQIA+ people for fertility/perinatal care or care in the first year after birth, to complete a survey to share unanswered research questions on this topic. These questions can be about any area of fertility, pregnancy, birth, lactation, postnatal physical and mental health, or broader questions about how healthcare systems are structured to best support LGBTQIA+ families.
They have already had a fantastic response from LGBTQIA+ people sharing their unanswered research questions. Priority Setting Partnerships are collaborative projects between patients and professionals, so they would love to get more perinatal professionals to contribute.
Contribute your unanswered research questions here, before 30 November 2024: bit.ly/3Bev2zp
You can read more about the survey here: www.lgbtmummies.com/psp-about-survey and the project here: www.lgbtmummies.com/psp-about
