Understanding the experiences of receiving and providing maternity care for autistic adults: A Multi-perspectival Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study.

Only four autistic mothers and four midwives were interviewed, so the themes cannot be treated as general findings. All professionals were midwives, not obstetricians or other maternity staff, so other maternity workers' views are not represented. Two midwives were autistic and two had close autistic relatives, which may make their accounts different from typical midwifery practice. Many accounts were retrospective, some decades old, so they may not match current maternity care. Only one mother knew her diagnosis at the time of pregnancy and labour, so accounts may be shaped by later understanding. All mothers communicated verbally and did not have intellectual disability, so the study does not cover that part of the autism spectrum. Seven of eight participants were based in the United Kingdom, and all were white European women, so cultural and service-system differences are missing.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the Health Service Executive, Ireland, through the Doctoral Training in Clinical Psychology.

Do not read these themes as evidence that changing the environment or care model improves outcomes. This was a qualitative interview study with a small sample, and it did not test any intervention.