Reproductive and pregnancy health care for women with intellectual and developmental disabilities: A scoping review.
Jade I Ransohoff, Prisha Sujin Kumar, David Flynn and 1 others
PMID 35064736WHAT IT FOUND
Women with intellectual disabilities receive less sexual education and later prenatal care than peers.
Midwife and doula support shows promise for improving care, but providers often lack specific training. Current health systems frequently fail to adapt to these patients' needs.
Key findings
01Women with intellectual and developmental disabilities are less likely to receive adequate sexual education, which often focuses on hygiene rather than reproduction or contraception.
02Although many receive prenatal care, uptake is significantly lower and initiated later than for women without intellectual and developmental disabilities.
03Midwives and doulas often adapt care to meet needs, but many lack training in supporting women with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The review only included English-language papers, potentially missing relevant global research. Definitions of intellectual and developmental disabilities varied widely across the included studies, making it difficult to synthesise findings or apply them to specific subgroups. Grey literature was excluded, which may have omitted important unpublished data. As a scoping review, the goal was to map the field rather than answer a specific clinical question or provide meta-analytic estimates of effect.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the mention of midwife and doula care as evidence that these interventions have been proven to improve health outcomes for women with intellectual disabilities. The review found that while these providers often adapt care, the literature is small and lacks training data, so their efficacy in this specific population is not yet established.