“It is judgment by the people that have meant something to me that hurts the most”: Inter-discursive evidence synthesis incorporates the lived experience of adolescent mothers

Background Evidence synthesis without meaningful stakeholder engagement can overlook factors considered relevant and influential by stakeholders. This paper presents an inter-discursive approach to grounding conventional mixed methods evidence synthesis in stakeholder views of adolescent perinatal health in Canada. Methods A parallel-results convergent mixed review identified studies reporting on perinatal outcomes and experiences of adolescents during pregnancy to 12 months post-partum, in French or English, published in Canada after 2000. We summarized findings using thematic synthesis and descriptive statistics. We then extracted data from a provincial database of maternal and newborn outcomes and calculated relative risks for common perinatal risk factors and outcomes for adolescents compared to adult population within a local health region and across Ontario from 2012-2017. Two trained peer researchers contributed to our evidence syntheses. We shared syntheses with four service providers and 13 marginalized adolescent mothers, who identified and prioritized their areas of concern. A second literature review refocused around the priority issues identified by the women and was then expanded through semi-structured interviews.      Results Adolescent mothers face more poverty, higher rates of abuse, anxiety and depression than adult mothers. They also report experiencing negative judgments when accessing services, highlighting the need for more youth-friendly services. Adolescent women prioritized the experience of judgment in perinatal health and social services, and more specifically how they felt judgment contributed to them being identified as a child protection risk. Other priorities included inadequate housing, judgment around breastfeeding, loss of social support and inaccessibility of community resources. Judgment in the adolescent perinatal health literature was summarized around three themes: being invisible, incapable and at risk. Adolescent mothers adapted and added onto these categories, emphasizing organizational and social challenges, with important consequences for their mental health and accessing appropriate care. Conclusions Incorporating young women’s voices changed the focus of our research. Women’s priorities highlighted the way motherhood norms are embedded in social and institutional structures. Adolescent women’s experiences of care have important implications for ensuring the effectiveness of more targeted interventions to maximize benefit to women and newborns.