By Ambar Castillo, Photo: Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images, STAT, May 2, 2023
The research question that pursued Jessica Valdez, an OB-GYN resident physician at the University of California, San Francisco, stemmed from her mother’s womb: How important is it to a birthing woman’s experience to be seen by health care providers who share her primary language?
Valdez’s mother was 17 when she immigrated to California from Mexico in the 1970s. She didn’t speak English “and had no idea what normal labor and delivery is supposed to look like because she was practically alone here,” Valdez explained.
The details of her mother’s labor with her firstborn son are fuzzy, but one fact was clear: Her mother was unable to fully dilate to 10 centimeters. Her clinicians likely recommended and administered a C-section. Throughout her hospital stay, her mother never encountered staff who spoke Spanish with her. That meant post-operation, no clinician prepared her to take care of herself after a major abdominal surgery, or when to return to the hospital for any warning signs of an infection, Valdez said.
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