Aim: To describe communication and access barriers encountered by allophone women of different migration backgrounds in the Swiss maternity care services, from the perspective of users, healthcare professionals and intercultural interpreters. Background: In addition to the challenges of maternal adjustment, pregnant migrant women must also deal with an unfamiliar health service system. Some must overcome language barriers and the stress of uncertain residence status. Limited access to maternity care increases perinatal morbidity and mortality. Almost 10% of foreigners speak none of Switzerland's official languages. Factors that facilitate or hinder communication between migrant women and perinatal healthcare professionals are under-studied and must be understood if we are to overcome those barriers in clinical practice. Design: Qualitative exploratory study with quantitative sub-study. Methods: Participants will be drawn from German to speaking regions of Switzerland. We will conduct focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with users in their own language (Albanian and Tigrinya) and with healthcare professionals and intercultural interpreters (March–June 2016), then perform Thematic Analysis on the data. In the sub-study, midwives will report their experience of using a telephone interpreting service during postnatal home visits in a questionnaire (October 2013–March 2016). Data will be analysed with descriptive statistics. Discussion: Our study will reveal patterns in communications between allophone migrant women and healthcare providers and communication barriers. By incorporating multiple perspectives, we will describe the challenges all parties face. Our results will inform those who draft recommendations to improve provision of maternity care to allophone women and their families. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov ID: BernUAS NCT02695316. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

maternal health services professional–patient relations health services needs and demand access to health care Migrants communication barriers midwifery intercultural interpreter nursing

information processing communication barrier Communication Barriers human middle aged Pregnant Women statistics and numerical data nursing staff Physicians Nursing Staff, Hospital qualitative research health personnel attitude Attitude of Health Personnel Humans Nurse Midwives psychology nurse midwife Maternal-Child Nursing maternal child health care male female pregnancy organization and management adult migration physician Culturally Competent Care pregnant woman transcultural care Transients and Migrants Switzerland Focus Groups