Listening to Mothers in California Survey, 2018

Listening to Mothers™ surveys (2002 - to present) investigate women's childbearing experiences from pregnancy (and sometimes earlier) through the postpartum period, and their views about these matters. National Listening to Mothers surveys to date were led by Childbirth Connection, which became a core program of the National Partnership for Women Families in 2014. Listening to Mothers in California, led by the National Partnership for Women Families, is the first state-level Listening to Mothers survey. This population-based survey of women who gave birth in California hospitals in 2016 was carried out by core Listening to Mothers investigators at the National Partnership for Women Families and at Boston University School of Public Health, joined by investigators at what is now known as the University of California San Francisco Center for Health Equity, in collaboration with the survey research firm Quantum Market Research. California Health Care Foundation and Yellow Chair Foundation funded the survey. As investigators had access to selected birth certificate items for sampling, contacting sampled women, data weighting and data analyses, the methodology of this survey differs from the methodology used in national Listening to Mothers surveys. Other differences between past national surveys and this state-level survey include the ability to participate in the state survey in either English or Spanish and to participate on any device, as well as with a trained interviewer. Eligible women could participate in past national surveys in English only and either on their own with a laptop or desktop computer or by telephone with a trained interviewer. The Listening to Mothers in California survey questionnaire retained some core items that had been included in previous surveys, adapted others (including for mobile-first display), and included new items developed to explore the evolving U.S. health and maternity care environment and topics relevant to the California context. Topics included care arrangements, maternity care (and especially care during the hospital stay for giving birth), mode of birth, respectful and disrespectful treatment, postpartum experiences, and perinatal mental health (especially anxiety and depression). The public dataset is limited to items provided by survey participants while completing the survey, exclusive of personally identifiable information. For their analyses, the survey investigators have access to two additional sources of information about survey participants that cannot be made public: selected items on participants’ birth certificates and selected items abstracted from the California Department of Health Care Services Management Information System/Decision Support System Warehouse. Much information about the California survey is available at either www.nationalpartnership.org/LTMCA or www.chcf.org/listening-to-mothers-CA. Information about national surveys (including a bibliography of analyses carried out to date and other reports) is available at www.nationalpartnership.org/listeningtomothers/.