Mothers who are disabled are more likely to have their newborn babies taken away from them by social services when discharged from the hospital after giving birth, according to a new study that uses data from health-care encounters in Ontario. The data was provided by ICES, a health-care data organization that makes it easier for researchers to access information about patients in Ontario.
The study uses data for all live singleton births in Ontario hospitals from 2009 to 2019. The probability of children of disabled mothers being taken away at birth is higher across all classifications of disability that the study mentions as compared to mothers without disabilities. Mothers with physical disabilities are 1.53 times more likely to have their children taken away, and mothers with sensory disabilities are 1.34 times more likely to have their children taken away. Mothers with intellectual or developmental disabilities are at 5.34 times the risk. If mothers have multiple categories of disabilities, there is about 3.09 times greater risk than for the general public.
During the period of the study, 3,505 children were removed from their mothers in total — 935 were from disabled mothers.
TVO Today spoke with lead author Claire Grant, a PhD student at University College London, to learn more about the study, her collaboration with researchers at the University of Toronto, and what the results reveal about how disabled mothers are treated in social-services cases.
TVO Today: Why did you want to explore this topic?
Claire Grant: A few years ago, I conducted a review where I looked at lots of different types of research that had been conducted across the world, Canada included, to see what we know about these mothers. What I was really struck by is that there seemed to be a really high level of mental-health difficulties and also intellectual and developmental disabilities. It struck me because it feels like that was tapping into a health-equity issue, that there were certain groups that were overrepresented in having their children taken into care.
We know that having a newborn apprehended at birth is quite a rare outcome (you’ll see from the data: less than 1 per cent of women without disabilities have their child [taken] at birth), but it paints a population-level picture of which groups are most at risk — and what that says about the systems and services that are supporting women.
TVO Today: You are a PhD student at University College London. What was your path to working with researchers at the University of Toronto?
Grant: As part of the review that I mentioned before, where I was looking at what research had been conducted internationally, I came across Dr. Hilary Brown’s research at the University of Toronto and became really interested in the sorts of methods and topics that she was leading on. I reached out to Hilary and explained the work that I was doing, and we were able to develop together this research proposal and secure funding. A joint Canada-U.K. funding initiative allowed me to come to Toronto for three months and work with the team to conduct this research.
Claire Grant is a PhD student at University College London. (Courtesy Claire Grant)
TVO Today: How was the data collected?
Grant: This is a really useful example of how research can use routinely collected administrative data to help generate evidence and inform policy and practice. So for the purposes of this research, we worked with a data analyst at ICES, and we were able to access a cohort of data, looking at all newborns who had been delivered in Ontario within a period from 2008 to 2019 and at the outcomes on those babies and also the mother’s health records. That data would have been collected at the point at which the mothers were in contact with health services. The power of using administrative data to highlight health inequities can be a really useful resource.
TVO Today: What are some limitations to the data?
Grant: The main limitation is that Indigenous status and ethnicity is missing and also the fact that we only know what is known to health services. It would be really interesting to look at social-care data, and that wasn’t possible with this study, but understanding the timings at which children become involved with social services — for example, if a child when they’re two, three, or four years old becomes known to social services and what that looks like for mothers with and without disabilities.
TVO Today: What are the impacts of mothers and children being separated right after childbirth?
Grant: The impacts are immediate in a lot of respects. There’s the emotional impact of separating mother and baby immediately after birth: it can be extremely traumatic for the mother, and it has known consequences for both mother and baby. It impedes the ability to breastfeed, to hold the baby, to bond.
TVO Today: How do you want this study used to improve outcomes for children of mothers with disabilities?
Grant: I think it’s trying to inform how we might better support parents, how we might support families to stay together safely, where it is appropriate to do so, thinking about the sorts of services that might be delivered.
Many of the risk factors that are indicated in this study — living in poverty, experiencing poor antenatal health, experiencing poor pre-pregnancy health— these are all things that can be changed. So it’s thinking about supporting women before they’re pregnant, as well as when they are pregnant, to make sure that they’re being supported in a way where they’re able to parent safely.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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