Research

Current Projects

2016-present
Social Disparities in NICU Care. Co-investigator with Principal Investigator Jochen Profit, MD, MPH,Stanford University, NIH Award: 1R01HD084667-01A1. Supervise Post-Doctoral Student on qualitative measurement of racial/ethnic disparity in the NICU setting to inform quantitative composite metric of structure and process outcomes among very low birth weight babies.

2015-present
A Dashboard of Racial/Ethnic Disparity in Care Provided by NICUs. Co-investigator with Principal Investigator Jochen Profit, MD, MPH, Stanford University, NIH Award: 1R01HD083368-01A1. Supervise Post-Doctoral Student on interviews with key informants to identify cultural, interactional and social drivers of institutional, health care clinician and patient bias leading to racial ethnic disparities in NICU outcomes.

2010-present
Traumatic Childbirth Experiences: Narratives of Women, Partners, and Health Care Providers. Co-investigator with Adina Nack, PhD, and Jamie Banker, PhD, California Lutheran University.

Completed Projects

2015-2019
Listening to Mothers III: Mixed Methods Analysis. Co-investigator with Theresa Morris, PhD, Texas A&M University and Miriam Naiman-Sessions, PhD, Independent Scholar, Montana.

2010-2018
Maternity Support Survey. Co-investigator with Louise Roth, PhD, University of Arizona and Marla Marek Seacrist, PhD, MSN, California State University, Stanislaus. A comparative survey of labor and delivery nurses, childbirth educators, and doulas in the U.S. and Canada to assess their experience of interventions in childbirth, their attitudes toward those interventions, their sense of efficacy in their maternity support roles, and experiences with the U.S. and Canadian health care systems.

2004-2007
Understanding Childbirth Education. Co-Investigator with Clarissa Hsu, PhD, Group Health Community Foundation. Funded by Lamaze International. Ethnographic study of childbirth education.

Books

Morton, Christine H. with Elayne G. Clift. Birth Ambassadors: Doulas and the Re-Emergence of Woman-Supported Birth in America. Amarillo, TX: Praeclarus Press, 2014.

Peer Review Journal Publications

2019 Morton, CH and P. Simkin. Can respectful maternity care save lives? Birth https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12444

2019 Judy AE, McCain CL, Lawton ES, Morton CH, Main EK, Druzin ML. Confirming the paradigm shift: systolic hypertension and preeclampsia-related mortality in California. Obstetrics & Gynecology. Vol. 133, No. 6, June, pp.1151-1159.

2019 Morton CH, Van Otterloo LR, Seacrist MJ, and EK Main. Translating maternal mortality reviews into action: Quality improvement opportunities among leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths in California. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2019.03.003

2019 Morton CH, Seacrist MJ, Van Otterloo LR, and EK Main. Quality Improvement Opportunities Identified Through Case Review of Pregnancy-Related Deaths from Preeclampsia. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2019.02.008

2019 Seacrist MJ, Morton CH, Van Otterloo LR, and EK Main. Quality Improvement Opportunities Identified Through Case Review of Pregnancy-Related Deaths from Sepsis. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2019.02.007

2019 Seacrist MJ, Van Otterloo LR, Morton CH and EK Main. Quality Improvement Opportunities Identified Through Case Review of Pregnancy-Related Deaths from Obstetric Hemorrhage. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2019.03.002

2019 Van Otterloo LR, Seacrist MJ, Morton CH and EK Main. Quality Improvement Opportunities Identified Through Case Review of Pregnancy-Related Deaths from Venous Thromboembolism. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2019.02.006

2019 Van Otterloo LR, Morton CH, Seacrist MJ, and EK Main. Quality Improvement Opportunities Identified Through Case Review of Pregnancy-Related Deaths from Cardiovascular Disease. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2019.03.001.

2019 Sigurdson K, Mitchell B, Liu J, Morton CH, Gould JB, Lee HC, Capdarest-Arest N, Profit J. Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Care: A System- atic Review. Pediatrics. Accepted February 2019

White Papers

2017 Morton CH, Scott KA. Racial Equity in Hospital Birth Outcomes: A summary of the literature and recommendations for action. Palo Alto, CA: CMQCC.

2017 Morton CH, Pine KH, Turon J** and EK Main. Lessons from the Initiative to Reduce Early Elective Deliveries in California and the United States. Palo Alto, CA: CMQCC.

2014 Childbirth Educators and Labor and Delivery Nurses in the United States and Canada. (Available at: http://www.maternitysupport.wordpress.com).

2014 Roth LM, Heidbreder N, Henley MM, Marek M, Naiman-Sessions M, Torres J and Morton, CH. Maternity Support Survey: A Report on the Cross-National Survey of Doulas,

2011 Main EK, Morton CH, Hopkins D, Giuliani G, Melsop K and Gould JB. 2011. Cesarean Deliveries, Outcomes, and Opportunities for Change in California: Toward a Public Agenda for Maternity Care Safety and Quality. Palo Alto, CA: CMQCC. (Available at http://www.cmqcc.org)

Book / Toolkit Sections

Morton CH. “Foreword,” in Oparah JC, Arega H, Hudson D, Jones L, and Oseguera, T. Battling over Birth: Black Women and the Maternal Health Care Crisis, Black Women Birthing Justice, Praeclarus Press, 2018.

Morton CH and J Trial. “Racial disparities in cardiovascular disease: Clinical implications,” in Afshan B. Hameed, Christine H. Morton, and Allana Moore, Improving Health Care Response to Cardiovascular Disease in Pregnancy and Postpartum Developed under contract #11-10006 with the California Department of Public Health, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Division. Published by the California Department of Public Health, 2017.

Morton CH, Seacrist MJ, Torres J and N Heidbreder, “Cultivating Collaborative Relationships Between Doulas and Labor & Delivery Nurses in the Provision of Labor Support,” in Angela Castaneda and Julie Searcy, Editors, Intimate Care: Doulas and the Birthing Body, Demeter Press, 2015.

Morton CH, Price M, and A Lyndon. 2015. “Women’s Experience of Obstetric Hemorrhage: Informational, Emotional and Physical Health Needs,” in Lyndon A, Lagrew D, Shields L, Main E, Cape V. Improving Health Care Response to Obstetric Hemorrhage. (California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative Toolkit to Transform Maternity Care) Developed under contract #11-10006 with the California Department of Public Health; Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Division; Published by the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative.

Morton CH and M Henley**. 2015. “United States of America,” in Patricia Kennedy and Naonori Kodate, editors, Maternity services and policy in an international context: Risk, citizen- ship and welfare regimes, New York: Routledge.

Morton CH. 2008. “Breastfeeding,” in Amy Lind and Stephanie Brzuzy, eds. Battleground: Women, Gender and Sexuality, Greenwood Press.

Press N, Browner CH, Tran D, Morton CH and B LeMaster. 1998. “Provisional Normalcy and “Perfect Babies”: Pregnant Women’s Attitudes Toward Disability in the Context of Prenatal Testing,” pp. 46-65 in Sarah Franklin and Helena Ragone, editors, Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power and Technological Innovation. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Manuscripts in Progress

Morton CH, Hall MF, Shaefer J, Karsnitz D, Pratt SD, Klassen M, Semenuk K, and C Chazotte. National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Support after a Severe Maternal Event. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecological and Neonatal Nursing. To be submitted December 2018

Morton CH, Pine KH and EK Main. How Early Elective Deliveries declined in the United States: A critical policy analysis case study of a measurement-based quality improvement initiative. To be submitted to Milbank Quarterly January 2019

Morris T and CH Morton. “Choice Constrained: Women’s Lack of Choice of Hospital for Birth.”

Morris T and CH Morton. “How Race, Class, and Hospital Characteristics Affect Women’s Subjective Experiences of Labor and Birth.”

Book Reviews

Morton, Christine H.
2012 _____. Giving Breastmilk: Body Ethics and Contemporary Breastfeeding Practice by Rhonda Shaw and Alison Bartlett. Gender and Society 26 (3) 2012: 536-538.

2010 _____. DES Daughters: Embodied Knowledge and the Transformation of Women’s Health Politics by Susan E. Bell. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 24(3) 2010: 421-422. 2006 _____. Abortion in the USA and the UK by Colin Francome. Gender and Society. Vol. 20 (5) 2006: 680-681.

2004 _____. Baby’s First Picture: Ultrasound and the Politics of Fetal Subjects by Lisa M. Mitchell. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. Vol. 29 (1) 2004: 156-159.

2003 _____. The Birth of Pleasure by Carol Gilligan. Journal of Marriage and the Family. Vol. 65 (1) Feb 2003: 265-266.

2002 _____. Medicalized Motherhood: Perspectives from the Lives of African-American and Jewish Women by Jacquelyn S. Litt. Women and Health. Volume 35 (1) 2002: 97-99. 2002 _____. Medicalized Motherhood: Perspectives from the Lives of African-American and Jewish Women by Jacquelyn S. Litt. Health. Vol. 5 (4), 2001:497-499.

Blog Posts

2010 – 2015 Science and Sensibility, community blogger
Quarterly contributions on topics such as maternal quality measures; racial/ethnic disparities in maternal outcomes; social science/qualitative research on maternity outcomes

2015 Gender and Society, Why are so many U.S. babies born via Cesarean? May 12, 2015; https://gendersociety.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/why-are-so-many-babies-born-via- cesarean/

2010 Stand and Deliver, Summer Reading on Maternal Care: Mis-Steps and Steps Forward…., July 29, 2010 (http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2010/07/guest-post-summer-reading- on-maternal.html)

2010 Girl w/ Pen reposted BEDSIDE MANNERS: From Childbirth Educator to Doula and Back Again — Trends in the History of Birth Advocacy and Education, October 3, 2010.

*Undergraduate student collaborator
**Graduate student collaborator