Abstract:
Despite the increasing public profile of lesbian childbearing, public health resources for
expectant women often bear heterosexist assumptions and create barriers to accessing
information relevant to lesbian mothering experiences. This descriptive, exploratory study
examined one lesbian couple's perceived educational needs for effective support, barriers to
access, strategies for locating care, and the impact of childbearing on their lives, as well as their
reflections on inviting ways to offer supportive practices in a public health context.
A case study approach used feminist ethnographic methodology and purposeful
convenience sampling. A prenatal and a postnatal open-ended interview were completed with 1
white, middle-class, able, lesbian childbearing couple, each ofwhom has birthed as coparent and
biological mother in this couple relationship.
Despite this couple's immense situated privilege, they struggled to locate the support they
sought for childbearing in a way that offered optimal emotional and physical care from the
preconceptual to postpartum stages and which maintained confidentiality or anonymity as
desired. They created meaningful care through personal networks. The findings were framed
using invitational and feminist theories: how people, places, programs, processes, policies, and
politics contributed to educational support. A three part conceptual framework emerged which
identified components of access to support: perceived safety of resources, disclosure status,
situated privilege, and public or private availability of information. The consequences of lack of
public access to comprehensive childbearing care for lesbian women and their communities are
described. Educational possibilities addressed systemic heterosexism through the development of
sensitive educators, meaningful curriculum, program planning, explicit policies, community
partnerships, and political leadership with respect to both institutional and research venues.
