A concept analysis of the term migrant women in the context of pregnancy.
Marie-Clare Balaam, Melanie Haith-Cooper, Alena Pařízková and 4 others
PMID 29052921WHAT IT FOUND
Maternity literature uses 'migrant women' inconsistently, often as one group.
The authors propose recording country of origin, host country, legal status, migration reason, and length of residence to clarify needs.
Key findings
01Only 4 texts explicitly defined pregnant migrant women, while many treated them as a homogeneous group.
02The proposed definition includes country or region of origin and host, legal status, type of migration, and length of residence or generation.
03The reviewed papers commonly reported that newly arrived migrant women faced challenges accessing care and had poorer pregnancy outcomes than women born in the host country.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The paper is a concept analysis, not a clinical trial or outcome study, so it cannot show that the proposed definition improves maternity care. No formal quality appraisal was used, so the included articles were not assessed for methodological strength. The search was limited to English-language articles about migration to Europe, so it may not apply elsewhere. Only 21 articles were analysed, and many did not clearly define pregnant migrant women, which limits how firmly the proposed attributes can be grounded.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that migration causes poorer pregnancy outcomes or that using the proposed definition will improve care. It analyses how 21 articles defined the term migrant women and does not test an intervention.