Legacies and Futures: Gestational Parents' Experiences with Vulnerability and Resilience as it Influences Parent and Neonatal Health

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Structural cisgenderism and heterosexism in reproductive healthcare, which assume gestational parents'to be women and/or heterosexual, enable the stressors of stigma and discrimination to "burrow underthe skin" during critical windows of foetal development. These stressors affect more than 525,000lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and/or transgender (LGBTQ+) potential gestational parents in the UK, thisresults in preventable higher risk for prenatal complications, such as macrosomia, pre-term birth, andlow-birth weight. Vulnerability as a measure of minority stress and systemic exclusion will be assessed forimpact alongside multi-level resilience factors (i.e., social connectedness, self-efficacy, etc.). A sample ofgestational parents (N=1,100) from three Inner London maternity wards and one ward in Brighton, withUniversity College Hospital as the central site, will participate through an online survey linked to patientelectronic health records to form the quantitative dataset. Recruitment will focus on LGBTQ+ gestationalparents with a case-matched sample of cisheterosexual respondents. This dataset will examine ifresilience and vulnerability influence birth outcomes and neonatal health, potentially interacting in theprocess. A qualitative subsample (N=30) rounds out survey data assessing needs and experiencenavigating antenatal and postpartum care. Study findings could improve parent and infant health,improving life expectancy and quality while lowering personal and social costs.