Melissa Cheyney
Biographic Data
| ID | 72831 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melissa Cheyney |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melissa |
| FAMILY NAME | Cheyney |
| SIGNATURE | CHEYNEY M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Oregon State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5672-3353 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 54 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Planned Home Births in the United States Have Outcomes Comparable to Planned Birth Center Births for Low-Risk Birthing Individuals
OBJECTIVE: There are lingering concerns in the United States about home birth. We used 2 large (n = 50,043; n = 62,984), national community birth registries to compare maternal and neonatal outcomes for planned home versus planned birth center births. METHODS: To compare outcomes by intended birth site, we used logistic regressions, controlling for demographic and pregnancy risk variables. Maternal outcomes included intrapartum or postpartum tran…
Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Genetic Counselors and Genetic Testing Among Certified Professional Midwives in Vermont: A Modified Grounded Theory Study
Increasingly, pregnant people in the United States are choosing to give at birth at home, and certified professional midwives (CPMs) often attend these births. Care by midwives, including home birth midwives, has the potential to decrease unnecessary medical interventions and their associated health care costs, as well as to improve maternal satisfaction with care. However, lack of integration into the health care system affects the ability of CP…
“I was able to take it back”: Seeking VBAC after experiencing dehumanizing maternity care in a primary cesarean
In this article, we present findings from a qualitative narrative analysis that examined the pregnancy, primary cesarean, and subsequent birth experiences of women in the United States. Using a maximal variation sampling strategy, we recruited participants via social media and networking to participate in semistructured interviews. Twenty-five women from diverse backgrounds and geographic locations across the U.S. participated, eight self-identif…
Maternal hair cortisol concentrations across pregnancy and the early postpartum period in a Puerto Rican sample
Maternal hair cortisol concentrations were lower in the first and second trimester than the third trimester and early postpartum period. We also observed a wide range of variation in cortisol levels throughout pregnancy and in the postpartum period
Obstetric iatrogenesis in the United States: The spectrum of unintentional harm, disrespect, violence, and abuse
'Medical iatrogenesis' was first defined by Illich as injuries 'done to patients by ineffective, unsafe, and erroneous treatments'. Following Lokumage's original usage of the term, this paper explores 'obstetric iatrogenesis' along a spectrum ranging from unintentional harm (UH) to overt disrespect, violence, and abuse (DVA), employing the acronym 'UHDVA' for this spectrum. This paper draws attention to the systemic maltreatment rooted in the tec…
La Crisis de la Atención de Maternidad: Experts’ Perspectives on the Syndemic of Poor Perinatal Health Outcomes in Puerto Rico
The purpose of this study was to center the voices of maternal and infant health care (MIH) clinicians and public health experts to better understand factors associated with persistently high rates of poor perinatal health outcomes in Puerto Rico. Currently, Puerto Rican physicians, midwives, and other care providers’ perspectives are absent from the literature. Guided by a syndemics framework, data were collected during eighteen months of ethnog…
Maternal stress and the Zikv epidemic in Puerto Rico
In the summer of 2016, we examined the impact of the ZIKV crisis on women’s experiences of perinatal stress in Puerto Rico. Twenty-two pregnant or recently postpartum women engaged in qualitative interviews designed to elicit experiences of stress and pregnancy. Three key themes emerged from the interviews: 1) ‘Every day I think that it was invented’: Skepticism of official messaging about ZIKV; 2) ‘I worried about mosquitoes all the time’: Fear …
Women hope the situation will change, and their husbands will change with it”: Narratives of intimate partner violence in Gaza
The authors' purpose in conducting this study was to identify barriers faced by survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in accessing services in Gaza. We collected data via in-depth interviews with women (ages 18-49; n = 25). Respondents were recruited through convenience sampling from women's organizations. Interviews were transcribed, translated, and coded using an inductive approach. Results indicate three main factors that influence help…
The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for More Integrated Maternity Care
The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for More Integrated Maternity Care Jochen Profit MD, MPH, Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds MD, MPH, MS, Neel Shah MD, MPP, and Melissa Cheyney PhD, LDM Affiliation Jochen Profit is with the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, and the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative, Stanford. Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds is with th…
The Giving Voice to Mothers study: Inequity and mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States
BACKGROUND: Recently WHO researchers described seven dimensions of mistreatment in maternity care that have adverse impacts on quality and safety. Applying the WHO framework for quality care, service users partnered with NGOs, clinicians, and researchers, to design and conduct the Giving Voice to Mothers (GVtM)-US study. METHODS: Our multi-stakeholder team distributed an online cross-sectional survey to capture lived experiences of maternity care…
Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago
The early occupation of America The Cooper's Ferry archaeological site in western North America has provided evidence for the pattern and time course of the early peopling of the Americas. Davis et al. describe new evidence of human activity from this site, including stemmed projectile points. Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis indicate an age between 16,560 and 15,280 years before present. Humans therefore arrived in the Americas before an…
Temporal Themes in Periviable Birth: A Qualitative Analysis of Patient Experiences
Early Childhood Leadership: A Photovoice Exploration
The first five years of a child’s life represent critical windows in physiological, social-emotional, and cognitive development. Administrators of early childhood (EC) programs play a pivotal role in determining the quality of experiences that unfold for young children in center-based care. Using photovoice, semi-structured administrator interviews, and participant-observation, we aimed to identify the factors contributing to one center’s atypica…
Too Long to Wait: Obstetric Fistula and the Sociopolitical Dynamics of the Fourth Delay in Soroti, Uganda
Uganda has one of the highest obstetric fistula rates in the world with approximately 200,000 women currently suffering. Surgical closure successfully treats fistula in the majority of cases, yet there is a severe shortage of facilities and trained surgeons in low-resource countries. The purpose of this study was to examine Ugandan women's experiences of obstetric fistula with the aim of adding narrative depth to the clinical literature on this d…
“If It Is Written by Allah, There Is Nothing That Can Stop It”: Saudi women’s breast cancer narratives
The purpose of this study was to identify cultural models of breast cancer held by Saudi women and to explore how these may influence early detection and treatment-seeking behaviors. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with breast cancer survivors (n=20) from two Western cities in Saudi Arabia. Respondents were recruited through social networking, using purposive, snowball sampling. Illness narratives elicited during interviews wer…
Navigating Social and Institutional Obstacles: Low-Income Women Seeking Abortion
Nearly half of all women in the United States will have at least one abortion during their lifetime, and many will encounter economic, logistical, and/or social obstacles while attempting to undergo the procedure. The purpose of this project was to examine the abortion-seeking experiences of a volunteer sample of Oregon women, to identify key barriers and the strategies women employed to overcome them. Using a mixed-methods approach combining sur…
Homebirth Transfers in the United States: Narratives of Risk, Fear, and Mutual Accommodation
The purpose of this study was to explore the contested space of home-to-hospital transfers that occur during labor or in the immediate postpartum period, as a means of identifying the mechanisms that maintain philosophical and practice divides between homebirth midwives and hospital-based clinicians in the United States. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews, participant observation, and reciprocal ethnography, we identi…
Food is more than nutrition. Nutritional counseling and the language of prenatal diet in midwifery and obstetric practice
Reinscribing the Birthing Body: Homebirth as Ritual Performance
In this article, I examine the clinical practices engaged in by U.S. homebirth midwives and their clients from the beginning of pregnancy through to the immediate postpartum period, deconstructing them for their symbolic and ritual content. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews and intensive participant-observation, I describe the roles ritual plays in the construction, performance, and maintenance of birth at home as a …
Nutritional Counseling in Midwifery and Obstetric Practice
It is generally acknowledged that pregnant women require healthy diets. However, the cultural idea of "eating for two" and what constitutes an "appropriate" diet during pregnancy have been contested grounds of research as guidelines have changed over the decades. Using a grounded theory approach, we examine how research on pregnancy nutrition is incorporated into practice and translated to patients by obstetricians and 2 categories of midwives--c…
Narratives of Risk: Speaking Across the Hospital/Homebirth Divide
Homebirth as Systems-Challenging Praxis: Knowledge, Power, and Intimacy in the Birthplace
In this article, I examine the processes and motivations involved when women in the United States choose to circumvent the dominant obstetric care paradigm by delivering at home with a group of care providers called direct-entry midwives. Using grounded theory, participant observation, and open-ended, semistructured interviewing, I collected and analyzed homebirth narratives from a theoretical sample of women ( n = 50) in two research locales. Fi…
Homebirth as Systems-Challenging Praxis: Knowledge, Power, and Intimacy in the Birthplace
In this article, I examine the processes and motivations involved when women in the United States choose to circumvent the dominant obstetric care paradigm by delivering at home with a group of care providers called direct-entry midwives. Using grounded theory, participant observation, and open-ended, semistructured interviewing, I collected and analyzed homebirth narratives from a theoretical sample of women ( n = 50) in two research locales. Fi…
Reinscribing the Birthing Body: Homebirth as Ritual Performance
In this article, I examine the clinical practices engaged in by U.S. homebirth midwives and their clients from the beginning of pregnancy through to the immediate postpartum period, deconstructing them for their symbolic and ritual content. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews and intensive participant-observation, I describe the roles ritual plays in the construction, performance, and maintenance of birth at home as a …
Homebirth Transfers in the United States: Narratives of Risk, Fear, and Mutual Accommodation
The purpose of this study was to explore the contested space of home-to-hospital transfers that occur during labor or in the immediate postpartum period, as a means of identifying the mechanisms that maintain philosophical and practice divides between homebirth midwives and hospital-based clinicians in the United States. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews, participant observation, and reciprocal ethnography, we identi…
The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for More Integrated Maternity Care
The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for More Integrated Maternity Care Jochen Profit MD, MPH, Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds MD, MPH, MS, Neel Shah MD, MPP, and Melissa Cheyney PhD, LDM Affiliation Jochen Profit is with the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, and the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative, Stanford. Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds is with th…
Early Childhood Leadership: A Photovoice Exploration
The first five years of a child’s life represent critical windows in physiological, social-emotional, and cognitive development. Administrators of early childhood (EC) programs play a pivotal role in determining the quality of experiences that unfold for young children in center-based care. Using photovoice, semi-structured administrator interviews, and participant-observation, we aimed to identify the factors contributing to one center’s atypica…
Too Long to Wait: Obstetric Fistula and the Sociopolitical Dynamics of the Fourth Delay in Soroti, Uganda
Uganda has one of the highest obstetric fistula rates in the world with approximately 200,000 women currently suffering. Surgical closure successfully treats fistula in the majority of cases, yet there is a severe shortage of facilities and trained surgeons in low-resource countries. The purpose of this study was to examine Ugandan women's experiences of obstetric fistula with the aim of adding narrative depth to the clinical literature on this d…
Narratives of Risk: Speaking Across the Hospital/Homebirth Divide
Homebirth as Systems-Challenging Praxis: Knowledge, Power, and Intimacy in the Birthplace
In this article, I examine the processes and motivations involved when women in the United States choose to circumvent the dominant obstetric care paradigm by delivering at home with a group of care providers called direct-entry midwives. Using grounded theory, participant observation, and open-ended, semistructured interviewing, I collected and analyzed homebirth narratives from a theoretical sample of women ( n = 50) in two research locales. Fi…
Narratives of Risk: Speaking Across the Hospital/Homebirth Divide
Nutritional Counseling in Midwifery and Obstetric Practice
It is generally acknowledged that pregnant women require healthy diets. However, the cultural idea of "eating for two" and what constitutes an "appropriate" diet during pregnancy have been contested grounds of research as guidelines have changed over the decades. Using a grounded theory approach, we examine how research on pregnancy nutrition is incorporated into practice and translated to patients by obstetricians and 2 categories of midwives--c…
Food is more than nutrition. Nutritional counseling and the language of prenatal diet in midwifery and obstetric practice
Reinscribing the Birthing Body: Homebirth as Ritual Performance
In this article, I examine the clinical practices engaged in by U.S. homebirth midwives and their clients from the beginning of pregnancy through to the immediate postpartum period, deconstructing them for their symbolic and ritual content. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews and intensive participant-observation, I describe the roles ritual plays in the construction, performance, and maintenance of birth at home as a …
Navigating Social and Institutional Obstacles: Low-Income Women Seeking Abortion
Nearly half of all women in the United States will have at least one abortion during their lifetime, and many will encounter economic, logistical, and/or social obstacles while attempting to undergo the procedure. The purpose of this project was to examine the abortion-seeking experiences of a volunteer sample of Oregon women, to identify key barriers and the strategies women employed to overcome them. Using a mixed-methods approach combining sur…
Homebirth Transfers in the United States: Narratives of Risk, Fear, and Mutual Accommodation
The purpose of this study was to explore the contested space of home-to-hospital transfers that occur during labor or in the immediate postpartum period, as a means of identifying the mechanisms that maintain philosophical and practice divides between homebirth midwives and hospital-based clinicians in the United States. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews, participant observation, and reciprocal ethnography, we identi…
“If It Is Written by Allah, There Is Nothing That Can Stop It”: Saudi women’s breast cancer narratives
The purpose of this study was to identify cultural models of breast cancer held by Saudi women and to explore how these may influence early detection and treatment-seeking behaviors. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with breast cancer survivors (n=20) from two Western cities in Saudi Arabia. Respondents were recruited through social networking, using purposive, snowball sampling. Illness narratives elicited during interviews wer…
Early Childhood Leadership: A Photovoice Exploration
The first five years of a child’s life represent critical windows in physiological, social-emotional, and cognitive development. Administrators of early childhood (EC) programs play a pivotal role in determining the quality of experiences that unfold for young children in center-based care. Using photovoice, semi-structured administrator interviews, and participant-observation, we aimed to identify the factors contributing to one center’s atypica…
Too Long to Wait: Obstetric Fistula and the Sociopolitical Dynamics of the Fourth Delay in Soroti, Uganda
Uganda has one of the highest obstetric fistula rates in the world with approximately 200,000 women currently suffering. Surgical closure successfully treats fistula in the majority of cases, yet there is a severe shortage of facilities and trained surgeons in low-resource countries. The purpose of this study was to examine Ugandan women's experiences of obstetric fistula with the aim of adding narrative depth to the clinical literature on this d…
The Giving Voice to Mothers study: Inequity and mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States
BACKGROUND: Recently WHO researchers described seven dimensions of mistreatment in maternity care that have adverse impacts on quality and safety. Applying the WHO framework for quality care, service users partnered with NGOs, clinicians, and researchers, to design and conduct the Giving Voice to Mothers (GVtM)-US study. METHODS: Our multi-stakeholder team distributed an online cross-sectional survey to capture lived experiences of maternity care…
Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago
The early occupation of America The Cooper's Ferry archaeological site in western North America has provided evidence for the pattern and time course of the early peopling of the Americas. Davis et al. describe new evidence of human activity from this site, including stemmed projectile points. Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis indicate an age between 16,560 and 15,280 years before present. Humans therefore arrived in the Americas before an…
Temporal Themes in Periviable Birth: A Qualitative Analysis of Patient Experiences
Maternal stress and the Zikv epidemic in Puerto Rico
In the summer of 2016, we examined the impact of the ZIKV crisis on women’s experiences of perinatal stress in Puerto Rico. Twenty-two pregnant or recently postpartum women engaged in qualitative interviews designed to elicit experiences of stress and pregnancy. Three key themes emerged from the interviews: 1) ‘Every day I think that it was invented’: Skepticism of official messaging about ZIKV; 2) ‘I worried about mosquitoes all the time’: Fear …
Women hope the situation will change, and their husbands will change with it”: Narratives of intimate partner violence in Gaza
The authors' purpose in conducting this study was to identify barriers faced by survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in accessing services in Gaza. We collected data via in-depth interviews with women (ages 18-49; n = 25). Respondents were recruited through convenience sampling from women's organizations. Interviews were transcribed, translated, and coded using an inductive approach. Results indicate three main factors that influence help…
The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for More Integrated Maternity Care
The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for More Integrated Maternity Care Jochen Profit MD, MPH, Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds MD, MPH, MS, Neel Shah MD, MPP, and Melissa Cheyney PhD, LDM Affiliation Jochen Profit is with the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, and the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative, Stanford. Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds is with th…
Obstetric iatrogenesis in the United States: The spectrum of unintentional harm, disrespect, violence, and abuse
'Medical iatrogenesis' was first defined by Illich as injuries 'done to patients by ineffective, unsafe, and erroneous treatments'. Following Lokumage's original usage of the term, this paper explores 'obstetric iatrogenesis' along a spectrum ranging from unintentional harm (UH) to overt disrespect, violence, and abuse (DVA), employing the acronym 'UHDVA' for this spectrum. This paper draws attention to the systemic maltreatment rooted in the tec…
La Crisis de la Atención de Maternidad: Experts’ Perspectives on the Syndemic of Poor Perinatal Health Outcomes in Puerto Rico
The purpose of this study was to center the voices of maternal and infant health care (MIH) clinicians and public health experts to better understand factors associated with persistently high rates of poor perinatal health outcomes in Puerto Rico. Currently, Puerto Rican physicians, midwives, and other care providers’ perspectives are absent from the literature. Guided by a syndemics framework, data were collected during eighteen months of ethnog…
Maternal hair cortisol concentrations across pregnancy and the early postpartum period in a Puerto Rican sample
Maternal hair cortisol concentrations were lower in the first and second trimester than the third trimester and early postpartum period. We also observed a wide range of variation in cortisol levels throughout pregnancy and in the postpartum period
“I was able to take it back”: Seeking VBAC after experiencing dehumanizing maternity care in a primary cesarean
In this article, we present findings from a qualitative narrative analysis that examined the pregnancy, primary cesarean, and subsequent birth experiences of women in the United States. Using a maximal variation sampling strategy, we recruited participants via social media and networking to participate in semistructured interviews. Twenty-five women from diverse backgrounds and geographic locations across the U.S. participated, eight self-identif…
Planned Home Births in the United States Have Outcomes Comparable to Planned Birth Center Births for Low-Risk Birthing Individuals
OBJECTIVE: There are lingering concerns in the United States about home birth. We used 2 large (n = 50,043; n = 62,984), national community birth registries to compare maternal and neonatal outcomes for planned home versus planned birth center births. METHODS: To compare outcomes by intended birth site, we used logistic regressions, controlling for demographic and pregnancy risk variables. Maternal outcomes included intrapartum or postpartum tran…
Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Genetic Counselors and Genetic Testing Among Certified Professional Midwives in Vermont: A Modified Grounded Theory Study
Increasingly, pregnant people in the United States are choosing to give at birth at home, and certified professional midwives (CPMs) often attend these births. Care by midwives, including home birth midwives, has the potential to decrease unnecessary medical interventions and their associated health care costs, as well as to improve maternal satisfaction with care. However, lack of integration into the health care system affects the ability of CP…
Medicine (19 works) · Nursing (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Global Maternal and Child Health (7 works) · Narrative (7 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (6 works) · Pregnancy (6 works)