Maternal health care in a multiethnic setting with examples from Sweden, Scandinavia, and Europe

Women immigrating with their children are a vulnerable group often exposed to ill health and a bad environment. In Europe, women from the Middle East have a complex situation, but immigrant women from low socioeconomic status backgrounds are at highest risk, also with regard to the perinatal period in life. In Sweden all women, independent of their immigrant status are offered free high-quality perinatal care performed by midwives free of charge and nearly 100% use this care, though differently than the nonmigrant population. Often care is sought late in pregnancy, and problems with regard to communication affects the situation as well as care-seeking patterns. However, experiences from families’ originating from the Middle East show their high trust in midwives in Sweden. This trust must be handled with care since it is a great challenge for the health-care organization in Sweden as well as in other countries to host large migrating population, reaching out and communicating in a satisfactory way.