Disrupting the binary: Visual storytelling and the dignity of birthing bodies
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This visual essay integrates art, reproductive health education, and lived experience to explore how visual storytelling can transform perinatal care. Clinical realities and equitable care — attention to a patient’s dignity, autonomy, and wholeness — are too often framed as a binary, as though one must be prioritized and dictate the course of care. My experience as a community-based birth worker, educator, and patient points in another direction: these goals are not oppositional but interdependent. Clinical effectiveness and equity can — and must — coexist, and visual storytelling can help disrupt the false binary between them. The accompanying illustrations and reflections reimagine what equitable care looks like when every parent is seen (and shown) in their full humanity. The figures intentionally reflect a broad spectrum of identities and experiences — including BIPOC families, trans and non-binary parents, larger-bodied people, parents with disabilities, and others often marginalized or misrepresented in perinatal spaces. Each image serves as a counter-narrative to the narrow, pathologizing representations that dominate health education and clinical settings, modeling instead a culture of care grounded in recognition and respect. This work positions visual storytelling as a practical and cultural intervention within perinatal care. The imagery displayed in clinical spaces, the visuals used in education, and the design of patient-facing materials all shape how belonging is understood. By expanding who is depicted, we expand who is imagined as central to care. When patients see themselves reflected with dignity — and providers are surrounded by imagery that normalizes the full range of birthing people — the culture of care itself shifts. Ultimately, this submission argues that art is infrastructural as much as representational: a means to embed equity within the visual, spatial, and cultural fabric of perinatal care. Seeing the whole person is not an aspirational ideal; it is the foundation of safe, just, and human-centered healthcare.
Source: Health Equity
Author: Cheyenne Varner
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $950
OpenAlex ID: W7222744693