Person-Centred Perinatal Healthcare

Dear Colleagues,

The journey through pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period is a fundamental human experience, yet access to high-quality, person-centred care remains deeply inequitable. Person-centred care is defined by responsiveness to an individual's preferences, needs, and values, and is essential for achieving positive perinatal health and experience outcomes.

This Special Issue will critically examine how systemic oppression creates profound disparities in care quality and outcomes. We explicitly ground our approach in the principles of reproductive justice, affirming the human right to bodily autonomy and the right to parent in safe, sustainable communities. Submissions should adopt equity-based frameworks such as intersectional feminism to analyse how overlapping social identities and interlocking systems of power (such as racism, classism, ableism, and xenophobia) impact access, experiences, and health outcomes for diverse birthing people and parents.

We invite bold manuscripts that contribute new knowledge on the theoretical, empirical, and practical aspects of achieving truly person-centred, equitable perinatal care. All contributions must be mindful of promoting an inclusive environment by using gender-inclusive language (e.g., "birthing people", "parents", or "individuals" as appropriate) to respect all who receive perinatal services.

We welcome not only customary research papers and reviews, but also methodological papers, essays, position papers, brief reports, and commentaries that offer critical discussions, ethical analyses, and innovative policy proposals.

Dr. Sally Pezaro
Dr. John Pendleton
Dr. Kaveri Mayra
Dr. Suzanne Miller
Dr. George Parker
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.